Boeing 787 first flight

[Tarmac]

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"Airbus claims that it (A350) will be more fuel-efficient, with up to 8% lower operating cost than the Boeing 787"

A350 daw has 3% more composite materials than the B787

-wiki

Every little bit helps.

When you go back to the genesis of the A350, Airbus first came out with a made-over A330 to counter the Boeing 787. It was the only way they could come up with a plane that would be introduced around the same time as the 787. Nobody wanted to buy it. Everyone wanted a clean-sheet design like the 787. So Airbus went back to the drawing board, accepted a later service introduction and came up with the A350XWB.

[cptn_star]

You're right. The dirty little secret of aviation is turboprops are actually more difficult to fly than jets because you have to deal with propeller effects like torque, p-factor, slipstream, gyroscopic precession, engine criticality, etc... especially when an engine dies. React improperly and the plane will spiral into the ground. On a jet, you don't have any of those.

They also tend to be less automated than the typical jet airliner so workload is higher.

Ask pilots who've flown Airbuses or Boeings and transitioned to turboprops. Chances are they'll tell you they had a harder time.

mao jd...some pilots who have thousands of hours on jets would find it challenging to go back to planes with props...