Airbus partner, Spirit AeroSystems, has completed the curing of one of the panels that make up the longest section of the A350 XWB’s all carbon fibre fuselage. The 19.7 metre long, 77 square metre centre fuselage “crown” panel was cured at Spirit’s Kinston, North Carolina (USA) site. In the coming weeks, the panel will undergo trimming, drilling and non-destructive inspection.
This latest A350 XWB industrial milestone illustrates the sound progress being made as the first components for the first aircraft are being manufactured both at Airbus and Airbus’ partners’ sites around the globe. Another recent production achievement for the A350 XWB was the successful cure of the first forward fuselage section crown panel that took place in Nordenham (Germany) in September by Premium Aerotech.
The A350 XWB Family consists of three passenger versions with true long-range capability of flying up to 8500nm/15,580km. In a typical three-class configuration, the A350-800 will offer 270 seats while the A350-900 and the A350-1000 will offer 314 and 350 seats respectively. All members of the family can be configured for higher density layouts of up to 440 seats.
The baseline model, the A350-900’s design was frozen in December 2008 and is progressing towards entry-into-service in 2013. The smallest member of the family, the A350-800 will enter service in 2014. Completing the family, the A350-1000 is the largest of the three models and will enter service in 2015.
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