First BelugaXL successfully completes maiden flight

The first of five BelugaXL aircraft to fly landed at Toulouse-Blagnac, France at 14:41 hrs local time on July 19 after successfully completing its first flight lasting four hours and 11 minutes. The crew in the cockpit on board this flight comprised: Captain Christophe Cail, Co-Pilot Bernardo Saez-Benito Hernandez and Test-Flight Engineer Jean Michel Pin. Meanwhile, monitoring the aircraft systems and performance in real-time at the flight-test-engineer’s (FTE) station were Laurent Lapierre and Philippe Foucault. Following the first flight, the BelugaXL will undergo some 600 hours of flight test over 10 months to achieve Type Certification and entry into service