Airbus has flown its new A350F freighter for the first time, taking off from Toulouse and staying aloft for four hours and ten minutes while climbing to 25,000 feet. The plane is based on the A350 passenger jet and is designed to carry heavy, bulky loads. Airbus already builds freighters from its A330 and A321 models, but the A350F is a larger, longer-range addition.
The freighter's standout feature is a 4.3-metre cargo door, which Airbus says is big enough to load a turbofan engine directly into the plane. The company has explicitly pitched the aircraft at moving "high-density computer servers" and "large-scale electronic chip manufacturing machines," giving it a clear role in data-center supply chains. With a 109-tonne payload, the A350F carries more than the A330F's 64 tonnes, though slightly less than Boeing's 777F; Airbus argues its plane is more efficient to operate.
Airbus has almost finished a second test aircraft and still needs hundreds of certification flights before deliveries. The company reports 115 customer orders so far. The A350F cannot match the truly outsized loads handled by 747 freighters or the Antonov An-124, both of which have nose doors for very long cargo, but those designs are aging. European defence planners are already studying replacements for such aircraft, leaving room for new entrants in the heavy-lift market.