Aviation International News senior correspondent Ian Goold has been involved in aerospace since 1964 and in aviation media for more than 40 years. He enjoyed a 20-year career at Flight International magazine, where he was latterly air-transport editor before turning freelance in 1993. A winner of the European Regions Airline Association Hank McGonagle award for excellence in aerospace journalism and a Royal Aeronautical Society Aerospace Journalist of the Year global&nbsp;award, he has edited or contributed to aerospace and aviation magazines, special publications, and websites in Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. Ian entered aerospace as an apprentice at the British Aircraft Corporation at Brooklands (Weybridge), where he worked on production and final assembly lines of the Vickers Super VC10, and BAC One-Eleven , and manufacture of Concorde major sub-assemblies. He subsequently graduated from the BAC Design Training School to work in the airframe structures drawing office (including design of international future projects, such as the Panavia Tornado multi-role combat aircraft) before joining Flight International in 1973. Apart from years of reading aircraft magazines and books, his first direct contact with aviation media had come during the early 1970s when he was involved at Brooklands with the Weybridge Man-powered Aircraft Group, which designed and built the tenth aircraft to fly under purely human power. As an aviation journalist, he has worked at more than&nbsp; 50 of the major biennial&nbsp;global and regional international aerospace industry shows at Le Bourget, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai (having missed attending only one "Farnborough" since 1960), plus innumerable NBAA, HAI, (U.S.) AOPA, and EBACE Conventions and ERA Assemblies. His favourite aircraft is the Hawker Hunter, of which – as a schoolboy – he heard hundreds make their first flights from Dunsfold, where also on September 24, 2013, he saw the penultimate landing of the VC10 (happily involving an example of which he had witnessed the maiden takeoff in 1970) a day before the last example made the design's final flight (unless, of course....).

Senior correspondent

Ian Goold

Airbus faces several major steps in bringing the A350XWB, which flew in June before appearing <a href="http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/paris-air-show/2013-06-21/a350-delights-paris-show-crowds-last-minute-flyby">at the Paris Air Show</a>, into service in the second half of 2014, said executive vice-president and A350 program head Didier Evrard. The manufacturer is working hard to progress the five-aircraft flight-test campaign in order to deliver a mature design at entry into service (EIS).


As the new twin-aisle twinjet progresses, Airbus (Stand 410) must secure production ramp-up dates with its suppliers, and ensure smooth introduction of the stretched Series 1000 variant as it increases final-assembly capacity and tries to “capitalize on the A350 family position to increase market share,” said Evrard.


Among considerations as Airbus studies the development potential of all its aircraft designs is a possible second extension of the basic fuselage, which logically would be dubbed A350-1100. For Evrard, this would be straightforward: “Stretching [the aircraft] further is possible, it is no show-stopper.” Last month, he characterized such a second stretch as “still in the concept phase or even pre-concept phase. Others did it, so we can certainly do it. It’s a question of markets, of priorities. And we will continue to listen to our customers [and] hear what’s best for them. We have a big order book, so we are not in a hurry to define another product, but if the market needs it we’ll do it.”


Airbus product-marketing head Sophie Pendaries said that further higher-thrust variants of the Rolls-Royce <a href="http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/2013-02-07/trent-xwb-engine-achieves-easa-certification">Trent XWB engine</a> could be available depending on the degree of additional stretch–“two, three, four, five frames: we study everything”–and the offered range, which needs to be defined. The possible variant is “generating a lot of reaction from the competition, but let’s wait and see,” she said.


There is also talk of an A350 Regional variant, but Pendaries emphasized that this would not be the same as the A330 Regional recently revealed by the manufacturer. “The A330 Regional is a high-density aircraft for short-haul services. An A350 Regional would be for long-haul operations, so the two types are complementary but are not the same range,” explained Pendaries. “There are two types of long-haul: up to eight hours and more than eight hours, which requires a crew rest. Eight hours long-haul is the limit of the A350 Regional, which is not the target of the A330 Regional.”


With more than 175 orders booked, the initial stretched version–the 369-passenger A350-1000–is now entering the industrialization process, according to Evrard. A predicted market for 1,300 large twin-aisle twinjets accommodating 350+ passengers and about 780 to carry 400+ has grown by 29 percent since Airbus launched the A350XWB, said Evrard.


Prepping For Production


Final assembly is scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of 2015, with the ramp-up already started for the higher production rate that will pertain when the A350-1000 enters service in 2017. “[Final assembly] will involve a higher degree of maturity even than the A350-900 because we have to insert [the new variant] into the final-assembly line flow that will already be operating at high speed,” said Evrard. Airbus is already preparing to increase A350 build rate for 2017’s EIS.


The manufacturer sees A350-1000 development essentially as low risk after the -900’s steep learning curve. Evrard said there are many bridges to the earlier design because of the high level of commonality. Changes from the basic aircraft include the introduction of respective six- and five-frame forward- and aft-fuselage plugs and a stronger landing gear. Indeed, the new six-wheel undercarriage bogies suggest that the idea of a second A350 stretch is not a new one.


By the end of 2013, Airbus hopes to be building one A350-900 a month–dubbed Production Rate One. Plans call for this final-assembly flow to triple by the beginning of 2015. Evrard said that Airbus “would like to take time [to accelerate assembly] but customers do not want to wait.” He expects program technical and industrial maturity to merge with customers’ needs as Airbus prepares to deliver the first A350 to launch customer Qatar Airways around next September.


A year after inauguration of A350 final assembly, Airbus has two aircraft flying, but, concluded Evrard, “A program is never finished; we still have great challenges ahead to be processed.”

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