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

A plainly visible sign of progress on the Airbus A350 program emerged last week with the installation of the first pair of Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines and the new Honeywell HGT1700 auxiliary power unit at the airframer’s production facilities in Toulouse, France.


The pair of new Trent engines, each designed to produce 84,000 pounds of thrust for the A350-900, arrived in Toulouse from UTC Aerospace Systems (formerly Goodrich), which recently prepared the fully integrated powerplants before their installation on the aircraft’s pylons. On February 7 the <a href="http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/2013-02-07/trent-xwb-engine-achieves-easa-certification">Trent XWB received EASA engine type certification</a> following 3,100 hours of operation, including a series of test flights on Airbus’ A380 flying test bed (FTB) since the first engine prototype took to the air in February last year.


With installation last week of the airplane’s Honeywell APU, specially developed for the A350, MSN001 becomes essentially a “completed” aircraft. Airbus plans to hand over MSN001 to the Airbus Flight Test team for first flight preparations following ongoing ground tests, other mechanical preparations and painting in the coming weeks. It expects to fly the airplane for the first time this summer, roughly a year ahead of planned certification of the A350-900.


The third A350 XWB started to take shape in February on the Toulouse final assembly line, where engineers began joining the aircraft’s three fuselage sections following their arrival from St. Nazaire, France (front and center) and Hamburg, Germany (aft) aboard a Beluga transporter. Meanwhile, the second airframe, designated MSN5000, continues to undergo preparations for static testing in another hangar.


Airbus has collected firm orders from 35 customers for 415 A350-900s, 110 A350-1000s and 92 A350-800s.

First A350 XWB Gets Its Engines, APU

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