Airbus
Aircraft seat-bed design offers a comfortable journey for all travelers
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Another stand-out entry in the Create the Future Design Contest is the aircraft seat-bed design entered in the transportation section by Mario Martinez Celis from Mexico City. The concept design allows for 594 seats on the Airbus A380 which normally seats 555 but the real beauty of the configuration is that ALL passengers would be given the comfort of seat-beds with more space than ever before. Read More
Etihad buys up big at Farnborough Airshow
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Soaring oil prices might be putting the squeeze on margins for airlines around the world, but that hasn't deterred United Arab Emirates national carrier Etihad from splurging more than $20 billion on orders for Boeing and Airbus aircraft. Read More
Airbus and Honeywell team up on alternative fuel
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Virgin Atlantic and Boeing launched the world's first commercial airline flight on biofuel earlier this year, then Continental Airlines joined the push towards alternative fuels and now Airbus has announced that it will partner with Honeywell, IAE and JetBlue in order to develop a sustainable second-generation biofuel for use in commercial aircraft. Read More
Airbus completes world first GTL powered flight
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February 5, 2008 The Airbus A380 has become the first commercial aircraft to complete a flight using liquid fuel processed from gas. GTL involves converting natural gas, which emits the least carbon of all the fossil fuels, to a liquid fuel oil, which can be used as a fuel substitute, or mixed with regular fuel. The three-hour flight from the UK to France was the first stage of a test flight program to evaluate the environmental impact of alternative fuels in the airline market. Read More
Airbus A380 becomes the world’s largest private jet
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November 16, 2007 It’s designed to carry up to 800 passengers, but HRH Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal has his eye on one of his very own. Airbus has confirmed that the Saudi Prince has placed the first private order for the $300 million Airbus A380 superjumbo. Read More
Hypersonic civil aviation: Sydney to Brussels in four hours
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August 30, 2007 Imagine long-distance air-travel that could get you to the other side of the globe in less than a quarter of the time it presently takes? Researchers from Reaction Engines, a company created for design and development of advanced space transport and propulsion systems, are investigating the possibility of hypersonic civil transport in a three year study to examine the feasibility of reducing long-distance flights (e.g. from Brussels to Sydney) to less than 4 hours. Read More
Airbus unveils A350 Extra Wide Body (XWB) aircraft family
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July 18, 2006 Airbus used the backdrop of the Farnborough Air Show to today present a new family of aircraft, the A350 XWB, for Extra Wide Body, which will offer increased range, more speed, enhanced passenger comfort and improved economics and efficiency. The new family will consist of four passenger versions and one freighter. The A350-800 seats 270 passengers in a spacious three-class configuration, the A350-900 can accommodate 314 and the A350-1000 is designed for a capacity of 350. These three versions will have a range of 8500 nm and a cruise speed of Mach 0.85. Entry into service for the A350-900 is foreseen for 2012. Beyond this, the A350-900R will take the range even further as an ultra long-range aircraft. A freighter version, the A350-900F will complete the family. Read More
BMW and Airbus work together to create luxury aircraft interior
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March 19, 2006 If you wanted to give airline business class customers a feeling akin to the luxury they experience with a luxury automobile, the logical people to work with are the people who design luxury vehicle interiors. Airbus prides itself as having the “widest, tallest and most comfortable cabins of any corporate jet” and when it unveils a mock-up of the cabin for its new A350 twinjet at the Aircraft Interiors Expo 2006 exhibition in Hamburg next month, it will be work done in just such a partnership - with BMW Group Designworks. The cabin features new lighting features and projects ambient images onto the ceiling which, along with a host of other technologies, helps to create the mood required. Read More
Airbus twin-deck resort in the air
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JANUARY 23, 2005 One of aviation history's most important aircraft was unveiled last week when the Airbus A380 superjumbo, the world's first full-length twin-deck aircraft debuted at a ceremony in Toulouse, France. The A380's forte is capacity - 50% more than a 747 - and depending on the seating configuration, can carry up to 800 passengers on a long haul flight. The A380 is also fuel efficient, and experts predict that in the maximum 800 seat configuration, it will be nearly half the cost per seat to an airline for a long haul flight. Not surprisingly, the marginal existence of most airlines in the global aviation industry has seen them respond positively to the A380 and Airbus has already taken 149 orders at US$280 million per plane.
Airbus Completes First Mobile Phone Flight Trial.
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On September 15, an Airbus A320 successfully completed the first in-flight trial of GSM mobile telephones aboard an airliner. The test flight, which took place out of Toulouse, is the first milestone in Airbus' plans to offer in-flight mobile telephony services to passengers by 2006.
GSM service, web browsing, email, and virtual private network (VPN) were all flight tested as was Intranet from onboard servers and PDA's for crew use. In addition to this, wireless telemedicine, including a simulated emergency, demonstrated priority communication over other services. Read More
