Like Boeing's Dreamliner, the A350 is made mostly from composite materials, not metal. That makes the whole plane lighter and more fuel-efficient.
Fuel efficiency is the big draw: Airbus says the A350 will burn 25% less fuel than the previous generation of comparable jets.
The A350 has curved winglets that measure 17 feet, to improve aerodynamics. The plane is designed to cruise at Mach 0.85 (85% the speed of sound), a standard pace for long-haul jets.
[Source: FlightGlobal]
The largest A350, the 1000, will be able to fly 8,400 nautical miles (9,667 miles) on a full tank of gas.
The flight deck is designed to be ergonomic and easy to use for pilots accustomed to different Airbus planes. This cockpit, in test aircraft MSN1, was powered up for the first time in August 2012.
The jetliner is powered by Rolls-Royce Trent engines that generate nearly 100,000 pounds of thrust, and are key in reducing the A350's fuel consumption.
In February, Airbus announced its decision not to use the lithium-ion batteries that caused the Dreamliner so much trouble (like the one pictured here, which overheated). The A350 will be powered by nickel cadmium batteries, which are "proven and mastered."
Airbus hasn't built an A350 with a passenger cabin yet (that's coming soon), so we'll have to work with renderings of the interior.
The plane's interior is meant to be revolutionary as well. The cabin will be lit with energy-efficient LEDs that come in various colors and can mimic day and night, to help passengers deal with jet lag.
It's more crowded in economy, with nine seats per row. That gives each passenger 18 inches of seat width.
Like the Dreamliner, the composite A350 has larger windows than traditional jets. These are the widest of any jetliner, according to Airbus.
But before Airbus can deliver any of the 800 A350 XWBs it has taken orders for, there's a lot of work to do.
Planes have to stand up to things like lightning strikes. Most planes are hit by lightning about once every two years.
[Source: The Guardian]
Before the A350 took off for the first time, Airbus tested how far its wings would bend before breaking. Test Manager Emmanuel Bodin said "We will torture it a lot of times."
[Source: Airbus]
The plane took to the sky for the first time in June 2013, flying for four hours over southwestern France.
A week later, the A350 made its first public appearance, flying over the crowd at the Paris Air Show.
But there's a lot of testing left to do — the A350 will log 2,500 flight hours before it's delivered to any customers.
To speed that process up, Airbus will build five planes, its biggest test fleet ever. By 2018, it wants to crank out 10 per month.
The flight test program is going better than expected, Airbus says. The two test planes it has built so far are flying about 100 hours a month, double the rate of previous programs.
[Source: Aviation Week]