Airbus A380 takes off for round-the-world test flights
The Airbus A380 will take off from France on Monday for a round-the-world test mission, in the final hurdle before the superjumbo becomes the largest passenger plane in service.
The A380 will leave the southern French city of Toulouse at 10:00 am (0900 GMT) for Singapore in the first of seven stops in Asia, an Airbus official told AFP. The crew will then touch down in Australia, South Africa and Canada during the 17-day round of technical tests.
On-board engineers and certified test pilots will put the plane through its paces under simulated commercial conditions, including test landings at key airports, refueling practices and maintenance work.
The 150 hours of flying, which are expected to be the last major tests before approval from regulators next month, come at a difficult time for Airbus amid a hailstorm of bad publicity for its star project.
Airbus has been forced to push back its timetable for deliveries of the A380 three times because of problems encountered when wiring the cabins, with delays now estimated at about two years.
US mail group FedEx announced on November 7 it had cancelled an order for 10 cargo versions of the A380 because of delays to deliveries of the aircraft.
Its competitor Boeing, however, has gone from strength-to-strength on the back of buoyant demand for its 787 Dreamliner jet.
The A380 will leave Airbus headquarters near Toulouse on Monday, heading for Singapore then the South Korean capital Seoul on Wednesday.
A second test flight will take it to Hong Kong on Saturday, then Narita in Japan on November 19, while a third test flight is to encompass airports in China, namely Guangzhou on November 22, then Beijing and Shanghai on November 23.
The final flight from the Toulouse headquarters includes a stopover in Johannesburg in South Africa on November 26, then Sydney in Australia and the western Canadian port of Vancouver on November 29.
The four flights will result in 150 hours of flying under normal conditions and test the plane in some of the biggest airports in the world.
The flight to Singapore on Monday will carry pilots from European and US certification bodies, the European Aviation Safety Agency and the Federal Aviation Administration, who will be on board to monitor the aircraft.
It is capable of carrying 555-840 passengers depending on the seating lay-out chosen by the airline.
The A380 is forecast to enter service in the second half of next year with Singapore Airlines, which has ordered 10 of the planes. Sixteen airlines have placed a total of 149 firm orders.
The repeated delays to the A380 led Airbus parent company EADS to report a third-quarter loss of 195 million euros (250 million dollars) on Wednesday, a sharp reversal of its fortunes after a profit of 279 million euros in the same period of last year.
