The aircraft manufacturer Airbus was established in 1970 by the French, German and UK governments (with the Spanish government joining a year later) in order to develop a coordinated and collaborative European response to the dominance of the global civil aviation market by American companies. Since October 2006, following the decision by BAE Systems to sell its stake in the company, Airbus has been wholly owned by EADS (a joint venture between its French, German and Spanish parent companies).Recent Developments with Airbus (HC 427-I) examines recent challenges faced by Airbus, including reduced competitiveness as a result of the weak US dollar, delays and cost overruns in its flagship A380 aircraft, its restructuring programme, and the financing of the A350 XWB project. It also looks at the future role for the UK Government and the Regional Development Agencies, the implementation of the UK's National Aerospace Technology Strategy, and the impact of the current World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute between the US and the European Union (EU) over government subsidies.Given the fact that the sale of BAE's stake in the company has left the UK without a significant shareholding in

The book describes the recent progress in some engine technologies and active flow control and morphing technologies and in topics related to aeroacoustics and aircraft controllers. Both the researchers and students should find the material useful in their work.

When it comes to very highly complex, commercially funded product-development projects it is not sufficient to apply standard project management techniques to manage and keep them under control. Instead, they need a project management approach which is perfectly adapted to their complex nature. This, however, may generate additional cost and a dilemma arises because in commercially-driven product developments there is the natural tendency to limit the management-related costs. The development of a new commercial aircraft is no exception. In fact, it can be regarded as an extreme example of this kind of project. This is why it is especially useful to analyse the project management capabilities and practices needed to manage them. Cost reductions can still be achieved by concentrating on the essential elements of some project management disciplines, to maintain their principal strengths, and combining them in a pragmatic way on the basis of an integrated architecture. This book goes beyond descriptions of management disciplines found elsewhere in its treatment of the architecture integration necessary to interlink product, process and resources data. Only with this connectedness can the interoperation of the management essentials yield maximum efficiency and effectiveness. Commercial Aircraft Projects: Managing the Development of Highly Complex Products proposes an integrated architecture and details, step-by-step, how it can be used for the management of commercial aircraft development projects. The findings can also be applied to other industrial sectors that produce complex hardware based on design inputs.

QF32 is the award winning bestseller from Richard de Crespigny, author of the forthcoming Fly!: Life Lessons from the Cockpit of QF32 On 4 November 2010, a flight from Singapore to Sydney came within a knife edge of being one of the world's worst air disasters. Shortly after leaving Changi Airport, an explosion shattered Engine 2 of Qantas flight QF32 - an Airbus A380, the largest and most advanced passenger plane ever built. Hundreds of pieces of shrapnel ripped through the wing and fuselage, creating chaos as vital flight systems and back-ups were destroyed or degraded. In other hands, the plane might have been lost with all 469 people on board, but a supremely experienced flight crew, led by Captain Richard de Crespigny, managed to land the crippled aircraft and safely disembark the passengers after hours of nerve-racking effort. Tracing Richard's life and career up until that fateful flight, QF32 shows exactly what goes into the making of a top-level airline pilot, and the extraordinary skills and training needed to keep us safe in the air. Fascinating in its detail and vividly compelling in its narrative, QF32 is the riveting, blow-by-blow story of just what happens when things go badly wrong in the air, told by the captain himself. Winner of ABIA Awards for Best General Non-fiction Book of the Year 2013 and Indie Awards' Best Non-fiction 2012 Shortlisted ABIA Awards' Book of the Year 2013

Glare is the name given to a new material for aircraft structures developed at Delft University in the Netherlands. It consists of thin aluminium layers bonded together by adhesive containing embedded fibres and is very resistant to fatigue. This book gives the inside story of how the development of Glare took place. It took more than two decades from the first tests in Delft to the major breakthrough following the decision of Airbus to apply the material on the A380 super-jumbo. This success was achieved by a small group of people inspired by professor Boud Vogelesang, people who kept believing in the material and fought against all obstacles during the years. This book tells the story of the ups and downs and the final success of their efforts.