La Vraie Histoire de l’A350 – Documentaire Complet

Video from the channel Plane Curious Français about Airbus A350, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 56:47. Language: French. Video type: Documentary.

French-language documentary about the genesis and commercial trajectory of the Airbus A350, from an initial project derived from the A330 to becoming a long-haul benchmark. It covers the program's redesign, the aircraft's technology, flight testing and certification, the family's variants and its impact on the rivalry with Boeing.

In the early 2000s Airbus was relying on the four-engined A340 and the A380, while in 2003 Boeing launched the 7E7, later renamed 787, a twin-engine composite airliner. Airbus's first response, announced in 2004, was a modified A330 with new engines, which airlines rejected. In December 2006 the Airbus board approved an entirely new aircraft, the A350 XWB (Extra Wide Body), designed to compete with both the 787 and the 777. In 2008 the nose was redesigned with the black mask around the cockpit windows, a feature later carried over to the A330neo, the A220 and the A321XLR.

According to the documentary, composites account for 54% of the structure; the A350-900 has a wingspan of 64.75 m, the cabin is 5.61 m wide internally and is pressurized to an equivalent altitude of about 1,800 m. It is powered by the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB, with a fan of almost 3 m. The first flight took off from Toulouse-Blagnac on 14 June 2013 and lasted 4h 05m; the test campaign used five aircraft. EASA certified the type in September 2014 and the FAA in November; Qatar Airways received the first aircraft on 22 December 2014 and operated the first commercial flight from Doha on 15 January 2015. The A350-800 was cancelled in July 2014; the A350-1000 entered service in 2018 with Qatar Airways, and the A350-900 ULR inaugurated flight SQ22 Singapore-Newark on 11 October 2018, lasting about 18 hours. The A350F, launched in July 2021 based on the -1000, carries 111 t over 4,700 nautical miles, has accumulated 65 orders and deliveries are expected in 2027. By September 2025 the program had surpassed 1,400 orders, with a rate of about six aircraft per month.