7E7 Dreamliner has a rival.

[chris]

Boeing will not be impressed.

Having seemingly lost the super-jumbo market to Airbus, it now finds itself facing an Airbus rival to the 7E7 Dreamliner in the form of the new Airbus A350.

The A350 will principally carry between 245-285 passengers over distances of up to 8,600Nm. The first A350's will be powered by new General Electric GEnx 72A1 engines, with a promised double-digit improvement in fuel efficiency.

[VQ]

they need to improve their line up then?

[chris]

Even better, the A350 is not a totally new plane, but based from the existing A330, while the Boeing 7E7 is a totally new plane.

What next from Airbus I wonder? A new SST? I wouldn't be surprised. With Concorde not flying anymore, it would seem that a neglected sector of the market is ripe for the picking, especially since the old style scare-campaigns will no longer work. ;)

Although I've heard a group is trying to get either G-BOAF, or G-BOAG back in the sky. There is nothing technical preventing either from flying again (according to CAA), all it would take is some money to replace instruments taken out of the planes, and a bit of backing from Airbus. I think G-BOAG has had less flight time than all of the other Concordes.

I also wonder about the fate of the Air France Concordes. I know a pre-production one is on display at Airbus in Toulouse, but I also heard a production model was flown there, and wasn't decommissioned. :?

[Sepecat]

Your are kind a late with this news… Hehe


The A350 is nothing more than a stretched A330X… Where as the 7E7 is band new technology… However if look at one variant of the 7E7 and any Boeing aircrafts they tend to do way better that presumed logical statistics…

What does the A350 mean now, well It pretty much mean the death to the A340 line… And don’t look forward to seeing Airbus build any new planes… Even the A380 is well over budget…

But hey when you get Government funding, its alright… :rolleyes:

[chris]

That's true about over-budgets, and government funding, it works both ways.. ;)

I think the A340 will probably be retired by the time the A350 is here. Qantas is soon to take delivery of an A380. I've already seen what there one is like, and boy is it impressive.