A350 Performs Water Ingestion Tests

Airbus A350 has successfully performed water ingestion certification testing to demonstrate its ability to operate on wet runways.

Airbus A350 has successfully performed water ingestion certification testing to demonstrate its ability to operate on wet runways.

During these tests at Istres, France, the flight-test aircraft, MSN004, travelled through troughs containing at least 22mm of water depth, at a variety of speeds, starting at 60kts, and successively increasing to around 140kts.

This test validates how the aircraft would behave on a very rain-soaked runway, and verifies that neither the water under the aircraft nor the spray generated by the nose landing gear will enter the engines or APU (Auxilary Power Unit). For the test, the “water trough” was created by applying to the runway’s surface grooves and rubber strips inserted in the grooves to retain the water.

This pool measured 100m long by 29m wide. The aircraft performed several runs as planned in order to test various cases, including the use of reverse thrust.