Airbus A350-1000 lands in UK for first time.
A350-1000 test aircraft has landed for the first time in the UK on Tuesday.
The latest member of the Airbus long range widebody family took off from Toulouse in afternoon landing shortly after at Cardiff airport around 4.30pm.
The jet will remain in Cardiff airport for two days of fuel testing as part of the intensive certification programme.
UK based engineers will be supporting the flight test team in Cardiff this week.
Croeso i Gymru! #A350-1000 Welsh wings return to the country of their
birth for the certification test programme. pic.twitter.com/j0r8LTkWmS — Airbus Aircraft (@Airbus) 2 May 2017
As well as having a longer fuselage to accommodate 40 more passengers than the A350-900, the A350-1000 also features a modified wing trailing-edge, new six-wheel main landing gears and more powerful Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 engines.
The carbon-fibre wings for the A350 -1000 are made at Broughton’s £400m state of the art manufacturing facility which is said to be bigger than Wembley Stadium, and one of the largest manufacturing facilities to be built in the UK in recent years.
About 650 workers are based at the North Factory, in Broughton.
At 32 metres long and 6 metres wide the Deeside made A350-1000 wing is the largest carbon fibre wing ever made for a commercial airliner.
To date 12 customers from five continents have placed orders for a total of 211 A350-1000s and is scheduled to enter airline operation before year-end.
The burning question is, will the A350 -1000 pay a quick visit to Hawarden airport at some point over the next two days?
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