First A330neo successfully completes maiden flight

The first of three A330neo Family development aircraft to fly – MSN1795, an A330-900 variant – has landed at Toulouse-Blagnac, France on October 19, after successfully completing its first flight which lasted 4 hours and 13 minutes. The aircraft was powered by the latest technology Rolls-Royce Trent 7000 turbofans. Airbus has developed a fast-paced development programme from launch to first A330neo delivery. This will comprise 1,100 flight hours for the A330-900 campaign – to achieve its EASA and FAA Type Certification around the middle of 2018. An additional 300 flight hours is also allocated for the A330-800’s own certification flight-test campaign – which will commence in due course. These respective campaigns will be performed in an ‘airline like’ environment, ensuring maximum aircraft maturity and reliability at entry into service (EIS) with A330-900 launch operator TAP Portugal. This phase will also define the mature aircraft documentation to be available for airline operators at EIS. Overall, the full flight-test campaigns for both models will be performed by two A330-900s and one A330-800 respectively. To complement these dedicated flight-test aircraft, the first production A330-900 aircraft will also be tasked to validate the full Airspace cabin.