Airbus's rival to Boeing's problem-stricken Dreamliner jet completes its maiden flight without a hitch

• The high tech A350 is Airbus's first all-new plane in eight years
  
• It completed a four-hour test flight from Airbus's plant in Toulouse, France
  
• The ultra modern jet uses carbon composites and fly-by-wire technology
• Airbus plans to offer three variants to rival Boeing's 777 and 787 
  
• They ditched problematic lithium batteries following Dreamliner debacle
  

By Daniel Miller

PUBLISHED: 06:49 EST, 14 June 2013 | UPDATED: 10:48 EST, 14 June 2013

Airbus's new A350 passenger jet, a rival to Boeing's problematic 787 Dreamliner, has completed its maiden flight without a hitch.

Watched by more than 10,000 staff and spectators, the aircraft's curled wingtips sliced into clouds above the Airbus factory in southwestern France and flew over the Pyrenees mountains, with a crew of six wearing orange jumpsuits and parachutes.

The flight, with two former fighter pilots at the controls, lasted about four hours and capped eight years of development estimated to have cost $15 billion.

Touchdown: The Airbus A350 lands on the runway by the company's factory in Toulouse, France, after a successful maiden flight

Job done: Looking more like astronauts than airline pilots, the new plane's flight test crew, are applauded after completing the successful flight

Streamlined: The flight, with two former fighter pilots at the controls, lasted about four hours and capped eight years of development estimated to have cost $15 billion

'The airplane is behaving extremely well,' said British chief test pilot Peter Chandler, speaking by radio link from an altitude of 13,000 feet.

French co-pilot Guy Magrin took the controls for the take-off at 10:01 local time (0801 GMT), giving the plane air under its wings for the first time in front of a podium of airline chiefs who have ordered 613 aircraft.

It touched down at 14:05 local time, after flying past the Toulouse production site.

'It is a great day for Airbus. A maiden flight doesn't happen that often. It is not like the auto industry, where you launch a new model every two years or even less,' said Tom Enders, the head of Airbus parent EADS.

speaking by radio link from an altitude of 13,000 feet, British chief test pilot Peter Chandler, said the A350 was 'behaving extremely well'

Timing: The test flight comes three days before the start of the biennial Paris Air Show, where Airbus and Boeing traditionally do battle for aircraft orders

Efficient: The A350 uses light carbon-composite materials instead of aluminium, allowing airlines to make savings on fuel

One of the pilots waves from the cockpit window of the new Airbus A350 XWB after completing the successful maiden test flight

The long-awaited sortie is a milestone for Airbus as it battles against Boeing's 787 Dreamliner for sales of a new generation of lightweight jets made from carbon-plastic material designed to save fuel and open up new long-distance routes.

Boeing was quickest off the mark with the revolutionary carbon-composite technology and its Dreamliner has outsold the A350 with sales standing at 833 aircraft for 57 customers.

Airbus hopes to catch up and also mount a challenge to the U.S. manufacturer's larger, metallic 777 using a later version of the A350.

Airbus's ebullient New York-born sales chief, John Leahy, lost no time in talking up the plane's benefits moments after its Rolls-Royce engines opened up to full power.

The test flight crew (L-R) Pascal Verneau, Fernado Alonso, Guy Magrin, Patrick Du Che, Emanuele Costanzo and Chief Test pilot Peter Chandler wave after the A350 touched down

Chocks away! A view from inside the cockpit shows crew members preparing for take-off

Crew members sit in the passenger cabin compartment prepare for take-off. The aircraft is scheduled to enter service in late 2014

'Did you hear how quiet it was? We are going to set new standards ... People round airports won't even know we are taking off,' Leahy said.

Didier Evrard, a top European missile developer who was selected to run the A350 programme because of its complexity, smiled broadly but refused to relax.

'I will still be nervous until it comes back. I'm an engineer so I have to be connected to the ground and make sure everything is fine,' he said during the flight.

Competition for wide-bodied jets is expected to dominate next week's Paris Airshow, where the A350 could steal attention with a brief roar over the aviation industry's largest showcase.

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Up and away: The new Airbus A350 aircraft takes off for its first test flight from Airbus's plant in Toulouse, France this morning

A large crowd gathered at the runway at the Airbus factory in Toulouse to see A350's first flight

The Airbus A350 will be a rival to Boeing's problematic Dreamliner jets which had to be grounded following battery failures

High-tech Airbus A350 takes off on maiden flight

Airbus is finalising orders from Singapore Airlines , Kuwait Airways and Air France and may add a new customer at the June 17-23 show, analysts say.

Evrard said that Airbus would soon add a customer in the United States, where industry sources say that United Airlines is negotiating to upgrade and expand an existing order to 35 jets.

Airbus initially dismissed the threat posed by the new generation of mid-sized aircraft as it focused on building the world's largest airliner, the A380 superjumbo.

But faced with burgeoning Dreamliner sales, it changed tack and overhauled the design of the A350 by adopting similar composites technology in 2006.

Airbus plans to offer three variants of the A350 XWB, with the smallest, the A350 800, a rival to Boeing's Dreamliner 787-9 and 787-8 jets

The sleek jet with curled wingtips took off with a crew of six wearing parachutes and orange jumpsuits and with tonnes of test equipment on board

The high-tech jet, the company's first all-new plane in eight years, is built primarily from carbon composites and features fly-by-wire technology

To boost sales, Boeing is expected to confirm plans to build a larger version of its Dreamliner. It is also overhauling its 777 with new engines and wings.

The A350 is due to enter service in the second half of 2014 compared with an initial target of 2012 when it was launched as Europe's answer to the light-weight 787 Dreamliner.

Airbus plan to offer three variants of the A350.

The A350-800 is designed to compete with Boeing's 787-9 and 787-8 Dreamliners. It will have space for 270 passengers with a range of 8,500 nautical miles. The two aircraft are almost identical in terms of speed, capacity, range and cost.

AIRBUS A350 800 XWD

CRUISING SPEED: Mach 0.85

CAPACITY:  270 (3 class configuration)

RANGE: 8,500 nautical miles

COST: $245.5 million

BOEING 787-9 DREAMLINER

CRUISING SPEED: Mach 0.85

CAPACITY: 255-290 (3 class configuration)

RANGE: 8,000 - 8,500 nautical miles

COST: $243.6 million

Delays: The Airbus construction facilities in Hamburg. The A350 was originally planned to be ready by 2012

'The first flight is a very special moment in an aerospace company,' Tom Enders, CEO of Airbus's parent company EADS, said late Thursday.

Airbus made the decision to drop Lithium-Ion batteries and switch to traditional nickel-cadmium cells for the A350 in the wake of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner's 'exploding battery' mystery.

Teething problems: All 50 of Boeing's Dreamliners were grounded following two on-board fires, believed to have been sparked by faulty batteries

Overheated: The charred battery from the Dreamliner plane which made an emergency landing on January 16 in Takamatsu, is inspected by the manufacturer at the headquarters of GS Yuasa Corp in Kyoto, western Japan