Wings for Tomorrow; Airbus Begins Planning for New Aircraft Wings

While Airbus, one of the giants of aircraft manufacturing in the world, is working on the successor to one of its most popular models, the A320, Nusrat Ghani, the UK Minister of Industry, inaugurated an aircraft wing manufacturing plant in the southwest of England on Tuesday. This wing technology plant in southwest England will assist in designing and manufacturing wings that are taller, lighter, narrower, and have folding wingtips for more stable flight. Sue Partridge, the program manager for 'Wings for Tomorrow,' told reporters during the inauguration of the plant on Tuesday: 'Our program is to prepare the technologies we need for the next generation of Airbus aircraft, whatever that may be.' She added: 'Physics tells us that to achieve a more fuel-efficient wing, we need to make them taller and narrower, which means we need to increase the wing length.' Currently, the wings of the best-selling aircraft in the world, Airbus A320 and A321, and Boeing 737, are made of aluminum, but designers believe that composites will allow wings to be engineered in new and efficient tapered shapes in the future. However, the main obstacle is that composite parts are more expensive to produce. According to analysts, so far only one new Russian jet has used this method for wing production, but adapting it to the volume of Airbus or Boeing aircraft requires significant investment and cost control.