Airbus A350-900 · Runway 27 · First light
A350
One flight, start to finish. Scroll to take off, climb through the cloud deck, cruise at Mach 0.85 and land after dark.
- Length
- 66.8m
- Wingspan
- 64.75m
- Height
- 17.05m
02 · Takeoff roll
Two engines, 84,000 lbf each
The Rolls-Royce Trent XWB is the only engine offered on the A350. Its fan is 3.0 m across, wider than the fuselage of many regional jets.
- Thrust
- 84,000lbf
- Fan
- 3.0m
- Engines
- 2
03 · Rotation
Nose up, wheels off
Near 150 knots the pilot eases the sidestick back. The nose rises to about 12 degrees and the main gear leaves the runway a few seconds later.
The controls are fly-by-wire: the sidestick asks the flight computers for a change in flight path rather than moving the elevators directly.
- Max takeoff
- 283t
- Rotate
- ~150kt
- Pitch
- 12°
04 · Climb
Gear up, through the deck
The main gear folds inward into the belly and the nose gear swings forward into its bay. More than half of the airframe by weight is carbon-fibre composite, including the fuselage skin and the wing.
- Composite
- 53%
- Aluminium
- 19%
- Titanium
- 14%
05 · Cruise
Mach 0.85 at 39,000 ft
Above the weather the A350 covers about 488 knots over the ground in still air. The cabin is pressurised to 6,000 ft instead of the 8,000 ft common on older long-haul jets, so there is more oxygen in every breath.
- Range
- 15,000+km
- Ceiling
- 43,100ft
- Cabin alt
- 6,000ft
06 · The wing
Built to bend
In cruise you can watch the wing flex upward. The curved tips blend into it instead of meeting it at a corner, and the trailing-edge flaps trim the wing's camber through the flight to cut drag as fuel burns off.
- Span
- 64.75m
- Sweep
- 31.9°
- Area
- 442m²
07 · Turn
Banking toward sunset
Airliners turn gently. At 25 degrees of bank the wing has to make about 10 percent more lift to hold altitude, which you feel in your seat as 1.1 g. At cruise speed that bank swings the nose round about one degree each second.
- Bank
- 25°
- Load
- 1.10g
- Turn rate
- 1.0°/s
08 · Approach
Gear down on a 3° glidepath
The instrument landing system holds the aircraft on a 3° slope, about 300 ft of descent for every nautical mile. Ten wheels come down: two four-wheel bogies under the wings and a pair under the nose.
- Glideslope
- 3.0°
- Descent
- ~300ft/nm
- Wheels
- 10
09 · Touchdown
Arrived after dark
Main gear first, then the nose. Ground spoilers rise, the engines go into reverse and autobrake slows the aircraft to taxi speed. Scroll back up to fly it again.
- Cabin width
- 5.61m
- Seats
- 300–350
- Flight crew
- 2
3D aircraft: the FlightGear A350 XWB model, distributed in Flightradar24's fr24-3d-models under GPLv2. Fan project, not affiliated with Airbus.