Returning from nearly 3 weeks away on vacation...
Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Airbus has changed the A350 design and will go with a composite fuselage frame. (Read the WSJ article.)
"We thought the design we had was very good, but this one is even better," John Leahy, Airbus chief operating officer for customers, told the paper.
Here is part of the Journal story:
For months, Airbus had been telling customers that attaching skin panels made of carbon-fiber composites to an aluminum-alloy skeleton was superior to Boeing's method of making both the frame and fuselage of the Dreamliner from composites.
But Airbus, a unit of Franco-German European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., began to rethink its position after encountering resistance from customers who questioned whether the A350 would be more difficult to maintain than the Dreamliner.
Airbus has faced public pressure from several key customers throughout the design of the A350. After encountering criticism for first proposing the plane in 2004 with a more traditional all-aluminum fuselage, Airbus said in July 2006 that it was renaming the airplane the A350 XWB, for extra-wide body. Those plans called for making the skeleton of aluminum and the skins of composites, even though some aerospace engineers warned that such a combination could set the stage for corrosion and would require extra attention.
John Plueger, president and chief operating officer of leasing titan International Lease Finance Corp., which had criticized Airbus's plans to use the aluminum frame, said he believes Airbus is making the right decision.
"This is what we were hoping for," Mr. Plueger said. "We're getting more and more interest in the plane from our leasing customers, so the sooner Airbus can get it to market, the better."
There have been a number of heated discussions on this blog about the previous decision by Airbus to have composite panels and a metal frame.
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