A350 Troubles the latest news......

[J]

Qatar Airways being "difficult" on A350 launch, says Airbus boss

Excerpt:
European planemaker Airbus still plans to deliver its first A350 wide-body plane to launch customer Qatar Airways this year, but is aware that it is working for a "demanding" customer, its chief executive said on Friday.

Qatar recently rejected some aircraft from Airbus due to what it described as concerns over the quality of cabin fittings, finally taking delivery of its first A380 superjumbo last month after a three-month standoff.

After gaining European safety approval for the A350 last month, Airbus is now working to get the cabin furnishing ready for Qatar.

"We know it will be difficult to have it accepted because they are very demanding on quality, but it's a good start," Fabrice Bregier, the chief executive of the planemaker, told journalists in Berlin after the group signed a tentative deal to open a new plant in China.
* * *


[Then there are the comments:]

If you want a ford. Buy a Boeing. - If you want a BMW. Buy a Airbus
- -
There may indeed be friction between the Qatar CEO and Airbus - there is likely friction between Boeing and many of their customer for various reasons - but the one constant between Boeing and Customer: NEVER air in public your dirty laundry! Interesting that you would expect that type of behavior from an American company (for lack of discipline) versus a European company.

I truly believe that Airbus is a company without discipline in many areas of business - strategic development and design, manufacturing and senior management. It seems to clearly show in product choices for the market and the stupid comments from senior management about strategic customers ...
- -
Another comment by a bitter American upset at Airbus' rise from nothing to parity with Boeing, killing off McDonald Douglas in the civil aviation industry while they were at it. Poor you. Qatar Air's CEO admitted when the aircraft was delivered that that fault was with his company & its own contractors who were hired to install the interior & not airbus. In fact, that was the source of the disagreement since airbus did not hire these people & did not think they were obliged to make good on the defects.

[J]

I guess they settled their little spat.

Airbus to deliver first A350 jetliner around December 12

Excerpt:
(Reuters) - European planemaker Airbus aims to deliver the first A350 jetliner to launch customer Qatar Airways by mid-December, the airline said on Tuesday.

Gulf News quoted its chief executive Akbar Al Baker as saying the mid-sized jet would be delivered between Dec. 12 and 15‎ and appeared to rule out any last-minute hitches that might rattle investors in planemaker parent Airbus Group.

"Everything is perfect," he said, according to the Dubai-based newspaper.

* * *
The long-range, twin-aisle plane received its certification by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration last week, after winning European safety approval in September.

The version of the jet certified by the FAA and European regulators, the A350-900, is designed to seat 314 passengers.

Airbus has booked 750 orders for the A350, including 549 for the A350-900 and 169 for the larger A350-1000, which is due to enter service in 2017. The smaller A350-800 has 32 orders but is likely to be phased out to make way for the revamped A330neo.

Airbus is planning a steep production increase, aiming to build three A350s per month by year-end, up from two a month currently. By the end of next year it plans to build five a month and to hit 10 a month by mid-2018.

Airbus originally targeted entry to service in 2012 when it re-launched the current design of the A350 at the Farnborough Airshow in July 2006.

It later slowed development, both to ensure its maturity and iron out problems including a glitch in wings production, but the schedule has been broadly stable for the past two years.

The plane's successful test flight program, regulatory certification and impending first delivery have been well received by Airbus investors, helping shares rise more than 7 percent in the past month.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/ ... DS20141118

[Sickbag]

Delta Airlines has agreed to an order of 50 wide body Airbus jets with a market value of $14.3 billion, according to multiple reports.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/delta-air ... z3JgdDabkR

My flabber is truly ghasted.

[J]

Mystery as Qatar Airways postpones delivery of Airbus A350 jet

Excerpt:

The much-heralded introduction into service of Airbus’s new A350XWB passenger jet with Qatar Airways has been cancelled after hitting last-minute turbulence.

The first jet was due to be delivered to launch customer Qatar Airways on Friday with a VIP flight to Doha but this has been cancelled without explanation.

The jet - which has a list price of $295m (£188m) – was the first of 80 to be ordered by Gulf airline Qatar Airways, making it the pan-European aerospace company’s biggest client for the new model of aircraft.

In a statement Qatar Airways said: “We announce that the Airbus A350 aircraft ceremonial transfer of title has been postponed until further notice.

“With the imminent launch of the new Airbus A350 programme, both entities are committed to introducing the A350 very soon.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... qus_thread

[J]

Despite the attacks, a few aviation-related posts continue:

Qatar A350 delivery rescheduled for 22 December
The on/off delivery of the first Airbus A350-900 to launch customer Qatar Airways is now set to take place on 22 December.

Qatar Airways and Airbus plan to hold a delivery ceremony in Toulouse attended by the airline’s chief executive Akbar Al Baker along with Airbus chief Fabrice Bregier and Rolls-Royce head John Rishton.

Hand-over of the first of 80 A350s to Qatar Airways was due to take place on 13 December in Toulouse following formal transfer from Airbus’s industrial division to its delivery centre on 3 December. But with four days to go before the planned Toulouse hand-over, Qatar revealed that plans to take the aircraft had been “postponed until further notice”.

Airbus says the original delivery was held up by minor technical matters requiring a small amount of additional testing before Qatar Airways will agree to accept the aircraft. A350 programme chief Didier Evrard, speaking during an investor forum in London on 11 December, conceded the 10-day interval that Airbus had allowed between hand-over from the production arm to the delivery centre was normal but suggested it was a “little optimistic” for the first example of a new aircraft.
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/artic ... er-407047/

[J]

"What's it doing now?" A350 Decides Runway is Too Short - Aborts Takeoff

Reported on December 13. Includes lurid video. Not knowing where the aircraft entered the runway I'll just note that the total length JFK's 22R is more than 12,000 feet.

Excerpt:
There's something a touch eerie about watching your plane speeding down the runway live on your screen. The aborted takeoff clearly disconcerted some of the passengers. Equally disconcerting, perhaps, was the request from a member of the cabin crew for Honig to stop filming.

Honig said that he and some fellow journalists were so shaken that they asked to get off the plane. He said the request was refused, which some might think a touch odd.

Instead, he said that the airline's chief commercial officer told him that the plane had decided that the runway was too short and had simply put on the brakes entirely of its own accord. But had it really taken 18 seconds for the plane to decide: "Oh, wait. There's not enough runway"?

Honig, though, had more immediate concerns: "I was told that we would be taxiing to a different (less glitchy) runway, and would attempt another takeoff there. If that failed, we would be allowed to disembark. In other words, we were going to be taking off again whether we wanted to or not."

http://www.cnet.com/news/qatar-airways- ... us-flight/

[3WE]

#$^#$! I used the search feature- and THOUGHT I had found an A320 thread!

Ike, can I tell you about the focusing behaviour of eyes after 40?

[Rabbi O'Genius]

Nice (but short) video of a crosswind touch and go In the Scottish isles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBeaQ-L4llU

[reubee]

Had my first A350 flight last month (as well as 787 and surprisingly A340 as well). I suspect it was the pilots first A350 flight as well by the way he yanked back on the control column to rotate. I'd give a trip report on the benefits of premium economy but at the gate my boarding pass beeped and I was reissued with a lower number . Whilst its nice being able to lie down, they were having problems with the IFE screens. They were touchscreen but would remember where you had touched and keep repeating that action if that makes sense. All I could put it down to was that they were capacitive and after you touched the screen something (sweat, oil, dirt etc) was left behind. The person to the right of me, his screen was navigating right through the menu options, whilst mine was doing something equally odd, so I pressed the call button, and it then started triggering the call button approx. every minute for a while.

At end of day its just another airplane but you do notice the difference getting off a long haul flight on newer aircraft than the older.

[Gabriel]

Had my first A350 flight... the pilots yanked back on the control column to rotate.

[Not_Karl]

Had my first A350 flight... the pilots yanked back on the puny side stick to rotate.

Fixed .

[reubee]

Had my first A350 flight... the pilots yanked back on the puny side stick to rotate.

Fixed .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6lW1FbSHXA

[Verbal]

Bird Strike Damage Led To Air France A350 Airspeed Incident, BEA Says
Aviation Week 12/09/2025
Author: Thierry Dubois


LYON—Investigators at France’s Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) say insufficient radome maintenance after a bird strike probably caused airspeeds to become unreliable on an Air France-operated Airbus A350, as the radome collapsed and generated a particularly high workload for pilots until landing.

In the May 28, 2023, incident, the crew maintained high safety margins, thanks to effective teamwork and despite imperfect knowledge of some advanced systems, the final report by France’s air accident investigation bureau emphasizes. Airbus and Air France have since modified pilot and maintenance manuals. The report also shows how higher level of redundancies on latest-generation commercial aircraft can help crews in challenging circumstances.

The incident started with a weather radar failure. Minutes after takeoff from Osaka, Japan to Paris, the A350-900’s crew had to cope with faults that led them to apply the procedure for total loss of weather radar. Informed by Air France’s operations center of thunderstorm clouds along their route, they decided to turn back to Osaka. The cockpit crew comprised the captain and three copilots, two of whom were relief pilots for the long flight.

At the beginning of their descent, they heard a thud and a loud aerodynamic noise followed. Seeing fluctuating engine speeds, differences between altitudes on primary flight displays, and an airspeed source rejected, they declared pan-pan.

Preparing for an overweight landing, they received clearance to fly at a lower altitude to burn as much fuel as possible before touchdown. Meanwhile, the flight control system temporarily switched to alternate law, meaning flight envelope protection was still available but might be less effective than in normal law, depending on the fault.

The pilots, who considered the aircraft might have lost a section of the radome—the tip of the fuselage’s nose section, which houses the weather radar—or a probe, then observed unstable indicated airspeeds. At that point, changes in the aerodynamic shape of the nose section, where pitot probes are attached, was disturbing airspeed measurement. The crew applied the unreliable airspeed procedure and declared a Mayday. fuselage with birdstrikes photo credit: Air France via BEA

As the aerodynamic noise and vibration was increasing, and the pilot flying felt a slightly unstable dynamic performance, the crew decided to bring forward the configuration change. They extended the flaps, slats and landing gear. They thus assessed the performance of the aircraft in approach configuration well before the final approach.

Seeing marked differences between the speeds displayed on the primary flight displays, the crew switched the air data source to “backup,” which is independent from pitot technology and the air data reference system. The A350’s New Air and Inertia Automatic Data Switching (NAIADS) system provides the backup speed. It relies on angle of attack and weight or static probes located in the engines.

The crew did not fully comply with the unreliable speed procedure, investigators say. Switching to and maintaining backup speed must be followed by cutting off all three air data reference systems. Nevertheless, this action did not compromise safety, the report says.

The crew also decided to disconnect the autothrottle, autopilot and flight director and remain in manual mode until landing. In fact, all three systems were still available, and the crew disconnected them because they ignored NAIADS’ details, the investigators note. “Given the conditions of the day and the four-pilot crew, manual piloting of the aeroplane remained compatible with the available resources,” they say. “The strategy of keeping the automatic systems is still to be privileged as it preserves the crew’s resources.”

The lack of knowledge of the complex NAIADS system details may find its origin in the flight crew operating manual. Its description may be difficult to comprehend, the report says. Moreover, simulator training relating to NAIADS was far from operational conditions. Thanks to the A350’s NAIADS system, the unreliable airspeed procedure is different from the method on the A330, despite the possibility to hold a dual A330/A350 rating, which all pilots on board held, the report adds.

Finally, as the crew was preparing for the overweight landing, they faced an extra calculation challenge. The planned weight, 248 metric tons, was high above the 210 metric ton maximum on the pitch/thrust table. The crew had to extrapolate, which meant extra effort.

Nevertheless, the crew successfully managed a considerable workload. “The presence and commitment of three experienced co-pilots on board, whose roles were clearly established by the captain, enabled high safety margins to be maintained,” the investigators say.

The landing took place without further incident, and the radome was found in place, complete and substantially damaged. Ultraviolet ray examination detected organic residue from a bird strike at the top left of the radome. That portion of the radome was removed and sent to the Natural History Museum in Paris for DNA analysis of the residue, which was found to be from a falcon. “It is very likely that this strike caused a debonding of the inner skin that spread radially and aft-ward on the radome until it completely collapsed,” the BEA says. Before the collapse, it was already preventing movement of the radar antenna.

The bird strike was probably one a separate crew operating the A350 reported a month before the incident. During several flights preceding the occurrence, weather radar faults occurred. Air France’s maintenance center requested a visual inspection of the inner surface of the radome. However, the maintenance technician only carried out a visual inspection of the outer surface and tested the radar antenna, which had been replaced the day before. Airbus documentation confirms an internal radome inspection was required in this case, the BEA points out.

Updating its maintenance procedures in 2024, Airbus highlighted the systematic and mandatory character of inspections on the inner surface. For crews, the airframer updated the flight crew techniques manual on the unreliable airspeed procedure, adding a paragraph on the specific case of radome collapse. It also updated the pitch/thrust table with values corresponding to weights higher than -210 metric tons. Meanwhile, Air France produced bulletins for pilots about the NAIADS system.

[elaw]

Bird Strike Damage Led To Air France A350 Airspeed Incident, BEA Says
...airspeeds to become unreliable...

Was that an African A350 or a European one?

...NAIADS system.

Is that anything like a NAIR system?