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AIRBUS A318 FLIES

By Sebastian Steinke

At 10.11am Bernd Schaefer, Airbus Chief Pilot, Hamburg, released the brakes. And after a short, powerful take-off run, the 57.5 tonne prototype with the French prototype registration F-WWIA lifted off into the Hamburg sky, the first A318 on its maiden flight. For 3 hours and 44 minutes (block time 4 hours and 5 minutes) Schaefer, accompanied by Airbus Chief Test Pilot Jacques Rosay in the co-pilot's seat, flight test engineers Birnfeld and Schmoeckel, and test flight engineer Kamps, put the aircraft through its paces, in the course of which the two PW6000 engines consumed 10 tonnes of kerosene.

Accompanied by an Airbus A319, they started out towards the south-west and then turned to the north towards Heligoland. After overflying the island, the return flight took them over Düsseldorf, the east of Hamburg, Lübeck and Travemünde, back to Finkenwerder. During the mission the entire normal speed range was flown, from minimum speed through to the maximum permitted operating speed of Mach 0.82. The opportunity was taken to determine buffet boundaries and stall-inducing behaviour through to the maximum angle of attack. Noise emissions and vibration in the various speed ranges were also investigated. All the time some 7 tonnes of test equipment, including no less than 94km of electrical wiring, were recording several thousand parameters in the first prototype.

During the maiden flight, the crew explored the flight characteristics and control properties of the A318 using both normal (i.e. with the electronic fly-by-wire flight control system) and direct flight control laws. Under the latter, which are only activated during test flights, the on-board computers do not automatically intervene to prevent dangerous flight attitudes. Handling checks with various slat and flap settings and with the undercarriage up and down were also covered during the flight, in the course of which the A318 reached its operational ceiling of 39,000ft (11,890m).

After landing at the Finkenwerder airfield at Airbus' Hamburg plant at 1.55 p.m. pilot Bernd Schaefer praised the aerodynamic properties of the aircraft, which had handled as expected. "We took the aircraft from minimum to maximum operating speeds." Thanks to cockpit commonality and fly-by-wire controls, the A318 handled just like the A319. The aircraft had done all that was expected of it and the only faults or errors which occurred were ones which had been deliberately induced by the test crew. In most respects the test aircraft was identical to a finished production aircraft. Apart from new brakes and liquid crystal displays in the cockpit instead of CRTs, practically nothing had changed compared with previous models. Schaefer added, "We are very proud to have inaugurated our new 'wide baby' that will bring all the commonality and comfort benefits of Airbus single-aisles to the 100-seater market."

Only the Friday before the first flight, the A318 prototype had completed its high-speed taxiing trials in Hamburg. Due to adverse weather forecasts, with low visibility and cloudbase, the date of the first flight hung in the balance up to the last minute. While the engines fitted on the A318 prototype for its maiden flight were standard Airbus PW6000's from Pratt & Whitney, the first engines to be certified on the A318 will now be CFM56-5 turbines from CFM International that also power the A319 and have been chosen by Air France for the aircraft it has ordered (see box).

The guests of honour in Hamburg included not only EADS CEO Rainer Hertrich but also Airbus President and CEO, Noel Forgeard, who gave a congratulatory speech in German. With an implied side-swipe at Boeing's rival model, the 717, he declared that the A318 was not an "orphan" but a member of the successful A320 family. The latest Airbus offered the same comfort as the other models, he said; no passenger would notice any difference. With over 100 firm orders and options on hand by the occasion of the maiden flight, the new model had made a very good first impression on the market. The A318 would open up additional market potential for the family of standard-fuselage aircraft. Airbus wanted to be number 1 as regards customer satisfaction, "as that is the only way to secure jobs in the long-term." The A318 was "a small aircraft but a tremendous success, as tremendous as all the other Airbus programmes".

Nevertheless, on the occasion of the maiden flight of its twin-jet launched in 1999, the company was forced to adjust the A318 order backlog downwards to 114 aircraft for nine customers instead of the previously announced figure of 136 orders. The first customer delivery to Air France is now scheduled for the third quarter of 2003, almost nine months later than previously planned. This reflects the fact that Airbus's latest offspring, too, has not escaped the flurry of order cancellations and postponements on the part of the airline customers. Monthly production in Hamburg has already had to be reduced from 13 aircraft to 11 since the start of the year, and negotiations on short-time working are under way in the north German plants.

Shortly after the maiden flight of the A318, Airbus announced in Paris that despite 375 new orders in the last year and despite a record turnover of Euro 20.5 billion, it would be necessary due to a total of 101 cancelled orders to reduce working hours throughout the company, with a freeze on recruitment. Although technically this would mean that redundancies could be avoided, in fact the measures were tantamount to the loss of 6,000 jobs.

With the advent of the A318, Airbus is now competing directly with Boeing products in the lower market segment as well. In particular, the A318 and to some extent its bigger sister, the A319, are pitched against the Boeing 717-200 and the 737-600. On top of this, 2002 will see the maiden flights of very modern products from Embraer and Fairchild-Dornier that are also tailored to the regional market (see "Dornier 728" contribution on page 28). In the face of this hard competitive situation in a time of market weakness, BAE Systems has already thrown in the towel with its RJX programme.

Now that American Airlines has decided to shed 30 well maintained, leased Boeing 717-200's inherited from TWA by the summer, it is feared that this will have the effect of reducing the sales prospects for Boeing's twin-jet, significant numbers of which will then be available on the second-hand market. Only recently Boeing had decided to temporarily resume production of the 717, albeit at a slower production rate, and had announced a programme of product improvements.

Both the Boeing 737-600 and also the Airbus A318 are particularly attractive due to their relative size and high range to airlines that operate other models from the same product families and wish to benefit from their modular philosophy. On the other hand, most of the smaller and lighter models from Embraer and Fairchild-Dornier are directed more at the market segment of specialist regional airlines.

Two days after its debut in Hamburg, the A318 took its leave as it set off for Toulouse in the south of France, where the 650 flying hour test programme is to be pursued against the background of longer daylight hours.

From page 22 of FLUG REVUE 3/2002