Airbus A330-900 Flies for the First Time

The Airbus A330neo took to the air for the first time on Thursday from Blagnac Airport in Toulouse, France, at 9:57 a.m. local time. The first of three flight-test aircraft, A330-900 MSN1795 flew over southwestern France for four hours and 13 minutes before returning to Toulouse.

Schedules call for the A330neo’s flight-test program to log about 1,400 flying hours, including 1,100 hours for the A330-900 campaign, before gaining type certification in the middle of next year. Airbus expects to fly the smaller A330-800 for 300 hours before it wins type approval in 2019. Overall, Airbus plans to use three certification aircraft to perform the full A330neo family flight-test campaign, then a production airplane to validate its new Airspace cabin upgrade before service entry with launch customer TAP Portugal.  

Launched in July 2014, the A330neo benefits from a switch from the A330’s Rolls-Royce Trent 700 to the new Trent 7000 and the addition of sharklet wingtip devices. Primarily as a result of those changes, both the A330-900neo and its smaller sibling, the A330-800neo (based on the A330-200), will deliver a fuel-burn improvement of at least 14 percent over their predecessors. While the fuselages remain unchanged, Airbus specifications show 10 more passenger seats, giving the -900neo a three-class capacity of 287 and the -800neo a capacity of 257. Meanwhile, range increases by 200 nm in the larger variant, from 6,350 nm in the A330-300 to 6,550 nm in the -900neo, and by 250 nm in the smaller alternative, from 7,250 nm in the A330-200 to 7,500 nm in the -800neo. 

Although Airbus claims a marked improvement in aerodynamic efficiency with a 3.7-meter wingspan addition resulting from incorporation of the sharklets, most of the fuel-burn reduction comes from the new Trent 7000s. Rolls-Royce cites “significant” performance benefits in the 68,000- to 72,000-pound-thrust Trent 7000 compared with the Trent 700, improving specific fuel consumption by 10 percent, doubling the bypass ratio and reducing noise by half.

To meet A330neo requirements, Rolls-Royce has adapted the Trent 1000-10 to incorporate a new electronic engine control unit, new gearbox, air-start capability and related changes. Also fitted with a new nacelle, the Trent 7000 suffered development delays associated with its new electronic bleed-air system for wing deicing and a shortage of testing capacity at Rolls-Royce. As a result, the certification target for the A330-900 shifted from the fourth quarter of 2017 to mid-2018.