Gregory Polek has spent his entire career in aviation journalism with AIN, starting as a proofreader and assistant to then-managing editor Mary Mahoney in 1995 after serving an internship with&nbsp;New Jersey Monthly&nbsp;magazine and completing his B.A. degree in English/Writing at New Jersey’s William Paterson College. By 1997 Polek accepted a position as an associate editor, covering the regional airline beat for&nbsp;Aviation International News&nbsp;in place of retiring industry veteran Don Anderson. The assignment took Polek across North America and Europe to profile regional airlines varying in size and mission from the likes of floatplane operators Kenmore Air and Chalk’s Ocean Airways to regional jet operators such as SkyWest and American Eagle. Today, in his dual role as Air Transport Editor and International Airshow Editor, Polek writes, edits, and manages AIN’s commercial aviation content while overseeing each of the company’s daily international air show publications in Paris, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai. Most recently Polek has assumed oversight of daily coverage of the Helicopter Association International’s annual Heli-Expo convention.

Senior Editor

Gregory Polek

The first 21-meter-long front fuselage section for the Airbus A350 XWB has begun to take shape in Saint-Nazaire, France, where mechanics have begun joining the forward fuselage and nose sections, the European manufacturer announced today. The exercise will continue over the “coming weeks,” said Airbus. Once it completes the body join, the company plans to send the finished component via Beluga transport to the A350 XWB final assembly line in Toulouse.


The forward fuselage section, built by Germany’s Premium Aerotec, joins directly with the nose section, already assembled at Airbus in Saint-Nazaire from components produced by France’s Aerolia.


Airbus plans to use the assembly in the program’s static test airframe–the first A350 XWB scheduled for construction. The first “flyable” airframe for MSN1, one of the five flight-test aircraft Airbus plans to build, will follow closely behind, said the company. It will use the static airframe solely for ground tests meant to demonstrate the aircraft’s ability to sustain certification loads and provide key data ahead of the first flight in the first half of 2013.

Airbus Starts Joining the First A350 XWB Front Fuselage 

Airbus starts to join front fuselage for first A350 XWB.

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