Fifth A350 enters final assembly

The last of five A350 test aircraft has entered final assembly at Airbus’ Toulouse, France facilities.

Aircraft MSN5 is due to fly in the northern spring of 2014 and will be the second of two flight test A350s to be fitted with a passenger cabin, allowing it to be used for both cabin related test flights and what Airbus calls ‘early long flights’ carrying Airbus employees as passengers.

“This allows the cabin and related systems to be submitted to near realistic operations in order to ensure a mature cabin at entry into service. In addition, MSN5 will carry out route proving flights to demonstrate to the certification authorities that the aircraft performs perfectly in airport operations,” Airbus said in a statement.

Airbus says to date the two flying A350 test aircraft have accumulated over 500 flight test hours across more than 100 flights.