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April 26, 2024

A350 MSN59 : Dragonfly flight test

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Airbus has been testing new technologies that will assist pilots during operations in the air and on the ground. Called DragonFly, the system can alleviate the task of pilots during taxiing at airports but also automatically guide the aircraft to an airport and land it safely in case a pilot gets incapacitated. Airbus tests autonomous assistance with DragonFly.

Airbus has been working on DragonFly for two years, but started flight testing the system on A350-1000 test aircraft MSN059 since July 2022. This was done in incremental steps until the system was kind of mature enough by the end of November and early December. “But this needed finetuning and was not an easy walk in the park”, said Isabelle Lacaze, Head of the DragonFly project, during a media briefing today. Demonstrating the system was safe was key.

 


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Richard Schuurman
Active as a journalist since 1987, with a background in newspapers, magazines, and a regional news station, Richard has been covering commercial aviation on a freelance basis since late 2016. Richard is contributing to AirInsight since December 2018. He also writes for Airliner World, Aviation News, Piloot & Vliegtuig, and Luchtvaartnieuws Magazine. Twitter: @rschuur_aero.