The Aviation News Blog

Boeing is going to use a 747-400 testbed rigged out with sensors to get wing-loading data for its new 747-8.

It's going to have to lease the aircraft from Malaysia Airlines because Boeing doesn't keep prototypes of its airliners anymore, unlike Airbus, which has an A320, a couple of A340s and an A380 in its own "fleet", which come in handy for testing out new gadgets like winglets and laminar flow wings.

I guess there's only so much you can find out in the windtunnel, as my recent picture of the 747-8 Freighter model at Farnborough shows.

Airbus is coming under increasing pressure to gather some data that will allay fears that aircraft trailing its ultra-large airliner on runway approaches will have to fly much further behind than they do for 747s today.

During my visit to Toulouse last week, the A380 flight test team explained that they plan to carry out more tests to try and persuade the International Civil Aviation Organisation to relax its recommended separations for the A380, which have now been adopted by the UK Civil Aviation Authority.

Wake vortex tests at cruising altitude involved flying an A380 and a Boeing 747 leased from Lufthansa side by side (see picture below), while the pilots of a smaller A318 flew their aircraft into the vortices to assess their strength.

Now British Airways CEO Willie Walsh has raised the stakes further, by suggesting that unless A380 separations are reduced, the introduction of the double-deck airliner could actually reduce the capacity of London's congested Heathrow airport. You will be able to read more about's Walsh's comments in next week's issue of Flight International.

I was shocked and saddened to hear of the crash of the second Grob SPn utility jet prototype during a demonstration flight on 29 November, which killed Grob chief test pilot Gerard Guillaumaud. I photographed the aircraft involved during my visit to Grob's Tussenhausen-Mattsies airfield in Germany just a few weeks before the accident (above).

I also had the pleasure of meeting the unassuming Guillaumaud, and his tragic loss underlines the dangers still faced by test pilots despite advances in structural and aerodynamic modelling technology.

Initial indications are that both elevators and the left stabiliser separated from the primarily composite aircraft before impact. Grob had lengthened the stabilisers on the second prototype (below, foreground) compared with the first, to improve performance in icing conditions.