Aircraft
Flight Tests To Resume on Airbus BLADE Project
The project aims to demonstrate the potential for commercial application of laminar wings for airliners.
Airbus’s A340-300 testbed flies with experimental laminar-flow airfoil sections making up the outboard segments of each wing.
Airbus’s A340-300 testbed flies with experimental laminar-flow airfoil sections making up the outboard segments of each wing.

Early in April, Airbus plans to start the second phase of a 150 flight-hour test campaign aimed at confirming technology that is expected to cut aerodynamic drag and fuel consumption significantly. The A340BLADE (for Breakthrough Laminar Aircraft Demonstrator in Europe) project, which uses the original A340-300 prototype modified with new natural laminar-flow (NLF) outer-wings, is part of the region's Clean Sky joint-undertaking research program that aims to reduce aircraft CO2, greenhouse gas, and noise emissions.