Talk:Airbus A350

NPOV

I question the NPOV of this article, since it seems negatively slanted against Airbus. The focus is almost entirely on the negative aspects. For example: Doubt is cast about the Eur3.5 billion price tag and it is implied that the A350 is nothing but part of a FUD campaign. This is done by quoting unnamed authorities ("many industry and financial analysts"), which is a fallacy.

The factual accuracy of the article also leaves to be desired. For example, given that Boeing hoped to have 200 orders for the 7E7 by the end of 2004 but only got 52 (50 of which come from a single airline) (Reuters) it does not seem accurate to talk about "strong preliminary sales of the 7E7".

Removed POV tag as the above doesn't seem related to the current article. Also, please try to remember to include your username and a time-stamp. Dan100 18:53, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

Ok, looks good to me. Jeroen 12:58, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

Respectfully, it is not OK. The sales are not the point, and it is OK not to consider this aspect; agree with that one so far.

The NPOV of this Article, nevertheless, remains questionable. Still, Airbus is the only one blamed therein for receiving Government backings, which reflects the Boeing position only.

The Airbus argument, however, is for instance that majority of these backings airbus receives are not a present, but are repayable, and Boeing receives tax relief/tax aids outside regular writeoffs, which are not just a deferral, but just another form of subsidy on the business results after all.

The arguments on the Airbus side remain completely unmentioned, which makes this article clearly biased to one party's, i.e. Boeing's, point of view, thus discrediting Airbus.

Also, this rather political aspect, taking place on international level, is nothing which concerns the Aircraft A350 and its technology itself. In fact, this Boeing vs. Airbus dispute arose before official announcement of the A350. It actually derives from A380 financing. If anywhere, this dispute should be mentioned in the article about the companies, but not in an article about the product.

I recommend that any statements about backings/financing be removed, or at elast altered to objectively reflect the full story. Airbus, and also the European Union, have also made their statements to the WTO. A WTO decision is not yet finanlised, it is even not sought for by the American side; talks are ongoing. This shows that the story is not that easy. The article should remain a neutral focus on the Aircraft itself.

Cheers,

Airplanedude 26-DEC-2004 20:04 PST (sorry not username yet.)

I think it is possible to discuss the controversy between Airbus/EU and Boeing/US without loosing NPOV, but I agree that the focus of the article should be the airplane, not the politics surrounding it. I propose a format similar to that used for the other Airbus planes: History, Technology, Variants, Specifications. The Boeing/Airbus dispute can be discussed in the History section.

Jeroen 08:36, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

I did a fairly substantial revision of the article. Tried to make it more NPOV by rewriting some of the disputed paragraphs about the US/EU trade dispute and rearranged the information into 4 chapters.

Jeroen 09:51, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

Now this is good. Thanks for your work and time; my Job Situation does not allow me to write something up myself Aerospace Products. sorry. However, thanks a lot Jeroen. -Airplanedude 20:36, Jan 03, 2005

I have to back your observation, the article as it is currently is very neutral. I think the financing war is unwarranted since both companies are guilty. The only diffrence is how well they have managed to hide the financing. Airbus fail hopelessly here as the transaction is very obvious. Boeing is financed in a very tricky way. An article that handled Boeing financing very well is this article [1]

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NPOV questioned: "Since the A350's introduction, the 787 has outsold it by a factor of over 10:1." I do see two problems with this sentence: First, I miss the exact and complete list of preliminary sales for the A350. Second, if the preliminary sales are compared wouldn’t it more appropriate to compare only the part of contracts that were closed after both airliner programs were communicated? Therefore, I ask to delete this sentence or to introduce a more NPOV into this article. Thanks. MikeZ 21:11, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have just deleted the same passage before I saw this discussion. I too take objection to the 10:1 sales figure. It misrepresents the state of the competition for 7E7/A350 size jets, the A350 spec will not even by fully defined until late Feb/March 2005. Boeing's early lead is just that, an early lead due to the few years head start it has had for marketing. Further, while Boeing may (and probably will) outsell the A350 it will be nothing like a 10:1 ratio in the long term. Mark 00:01, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• • From the launch at Dec.2004 to update are 5 month and Airbus have only 10 orders for the A350. The Boeing 787 has in the same time after the launch ( april 2004 - aug.2004 ) 62 Orders plus 66 optinos.

13:24, April,28th,2005. DEF

Update to Boeing/Airbus dispute and military contracts

The New York Times reported that the World Trade Organization is getting ready to rule against Airbus on a number of Boeing's complaints; the article also goes into an important economic reality that would blunt the effect of any ruling - namely, that both jet makers already farm many parts of new airplanes out to many countries. For example, 35% of the 787 is actually built in Japan. See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/business/global/04wto.html?hpw

On another topic, both Boeing and Airbus benefit from military contracts. Airbus' parent, EADS, has military contracts, including the A400M transport project; Airbus cannot seriously make the claim that only Boeing benefits from building weapons.

• The critics are not the benefits with manufacturing weapons, the problem are the subsidies to boeing with black projects and via NASA projects.Supersymetrie (talk) 13:52, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps more article editing is in order.Raryel (talk) 16:49, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Composite frame

I added the following: There are early reports from September 2007 that Airbus now plans to use a composites placed over a composite frame instead of an aluminium-lithim frame as previously planned. [25] Differential expansion of a metal frame compared with composite skins was anticipated to be a problem with the old design but a metal frame was simpler to build using the exisiting Airbus infrastructure.

I used this preliminary report http://www.designnews.com/blog/380000238/post/860014486.html . If confirmed, the more definitive citation found should be added as well as changing parts of the article (such as the introduction) to reflect the change.

Archtrain 15:45, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

A350 XWB List Prices

Boeing included list prices for their aiplanes on their website (boeing.com). I can't seem to find list pricing for the A350XWB. Is anyone able to provide this information? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.175.225.22 (talk) 20:22, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

"parallel cross-section width from door 1 to door 4"

That is clumsy English, I think. Does it mean the cross-section doesn't change in shape or size over that part of the aircraft? Perhaps it means that the width is constant but not other dimensions? Grassynoel (talk) 05:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

It was very unclear. If door 1 and 4 are shown in this image File:A350xwb_nose_2009B.png, then the width is constant, but the height is not. So I changed it from "parallel cross-section width from door 1 to door 4" to "constant width from door 1 to door 4". -Fnlayson (talk) 12:05, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Composite fuselage

In light of the problems Boeing is having with composite fueslage panels for the 787, has there been any word from Airbus on whether the A350 might have similar problems, or how they might avoid them? - BilCat (talk) 18:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Airbus is using composite panels, which are bolted together to form the fuselage sections. More bolt together pieces this way, but is more like conventional aluminum construction. Airbus will probably do more structural testing sooner in the design process. -Fnlayson (talk) 20:23, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

It would be good to have a section of the article compare and contrast the composite design and assembly approaches used by Boeing and Airbus - each has pluses and minuses.Raryel (talk) 04:26, 3 September 2009 (UTC)