Given that lithium iron phosphate battery powered jet
airliners – like those proposed by Bauhaus Luftfahrt – are still decades away,
is the Airbus A350 currently the greenest conventionally fueled jet powered
passenger plane?
By: Ringo Bones
Given that it successfully flew its maiden flight without
incident at 0800 GMT back in Friday, June 14, 2013 at Toulouse, France, Airbus’
latest passenger plane – and slated to compete commercially with the Boeing 787
Dreamliner – the A350 is chock full of the latest boutique high-tech aerospace
design concepts all aimed at to reduce its fuel consumption. But does it truly
qualify its credentials as the greenest conventionally fuelled passenger plane?
After the various components are delivered by the Beluga
cargo plane to Airbus’ main plant – i.e. the fuselage was assembled in Germany
while the new fuel-efficient high-thrust engines are manufactured in the UK
while the avionics in the plane’s nose are from France– the A350 is also slated
to be Airbus’ headline product in the 2013 Paris Air Show. The mostly made of
carbon fiber fuselage and wings which on average weigh a fifth that of steel
allows the A350 to be more fuel efficient than current and competing models.
The unique wing shape and the large titanium fan blades of
the new Rolls Royce turbofan engine whose inside working temperature is half
that of the surface temperature of the sun and the monocrystalline heat
resistant alloy of the inner turbine blades all work in conjunction to make the
Airbus A350 the most fuel efficient conventionally fuelled plane in current
production. Given that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner has just recently shaken up
the unairworthyness of the lithium batteries of its auxiliary power unit, the
Airbus A350 could well be the unopposed greenest passenger plane currently
exhibited on the 2013 Paris Air Show.
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