After the excitement of the Boeing 787-10 having its first flight, it’s time to turn to Europe, wherre the Airbus A319neo conducted its maiden flight today, with the plane conducting a five-hour sortie from Hamburg-Finkenwerder Airport to Airbus’ base in Toulouse.
Airbus A319neo first flight – Image, Airbus
The A319neo is the shortest member of the A320neo family – coming in at 33.84 metres in length.
The test plane flown for the first time today flew with CFM LEAP-1A engines (with the type configurable with Prat and Whitney PW1100G Geared Turbofan engines).
The test plane will be used for testing of the aircraft handling qualities, autopilot, performance and systems, whist building on the test data from the rest of the A320neo family that is currently flying.
The order book for the A319neo however is not looking rosy, with orders for 55 planes at the moment. Currently, no launch customer has been announced for the type.
It seems the nibbling from the bottom by Embraer with their E2 series and Bombardier with their CSeries is making an impact, along with companies opting to operate the larger models of the A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX families.
Is there still a space for the 140 seater A319neo? I think we’ll find out in due time.
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