First A320neo completes maiden flight

The first A320neo to fly has landed back at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport France at 02:22 pm local time after successfully completing its first flight which lasted around two and a half hours.

The aircraft – carrying the registration F-WNEO – was flown by Airbus experimental test pilots Philippe Pellerin and Etienne Miche de Malleray. Accompanying them in the cockpit was test-flight engineer Jean-Paul Lambert. Monitoring the progress of the flight profile were the flight-test engineers Manfred Birnfeld and Sandra Bour-Schaeffer. 

For its first flight, the A320neo, powered by Pratt & Whitney PW1100G-JM engines, lifted off from Blagnac at around 60 tonnes. During the flight, which took the aircraft around southern France, the crew explored the aircraft’s flight envelope and systems operation, while the progress was monitored by experts on the ground in real-time via a direct telemetry link.

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