The Value of Aircraft Cabin Design Mock-Ups

The Value of Aircraft Cabin Design Mock-Ups

The explosion of air passenger traffic through the 1960s demanded that manufacturers develop large aircraft fabrication operations. Gradually, European firms which were on a national scale only found that they could not compete. The enormous size of the domestic US market for passenger aircraft gave the advantage to the USA. European collaboration was the response to this. Little changed as far as the advantage was concerned throughout 30 years of passenger aviation, until, that is, the Airbus A3XX project.

At first everyone involved needed imagination to know the true scale of what they were involved in with the A3XX. This applied equally to engineers, designers, suppliers, and also, the airlines. It was in the winter of 1999-2000 everything changed, as the first A3XX design mock-ups started arriving in sections by truck at Toulouse. Made by a local supplier, SefcaQueutelot, these design mock-ups were the upper-deck section and later, a full-length, full-diameter representative cross section, including main deck and lower cargo hold.

When installed in a new mockup centre adjacent to the Airbus headquarters building at Toulouse, the cabin design mock-ups gave airline customers, in particular, a real life impression of what they were being offered or what they may have already bought. Various interior cabin design mock-ups and features, some of them future options not yet finalized, were also in due course displayed among the design mock-ups collection, which eventually included the A300-600, A330-200, A340-600, and the narrow-body A319, A320, and A321.

Interior aircraft configurations cover cabins and galleys, as well as seating solutions. Going hand-in-hand with complete interior design services, preliminary and in-detail design of interior equipment and installation is an integral part of the process. System designers optimize system solutions by performing layout integration tasks and feasibility studies. They strive for improved galley flexibility, which gives airlines a wider range of options for galley positioning, while minimizing total aircraft weight.

Mock-up development goes from concept level through to the CAD model and beyond. This includes design in CATIA V5, creation of life-sized prototype parts, then creation of CNC manufactured parts.

Aircraft cabin design mock-ups allow system integration (cooling, electrics, lighting, water and waste), integration of monuments, interface management to aircraft on-board systems, certification according to EASA 21J (Design), 21G (production) and local airworthiness requirements.

The payoff came when, aware of the need to keep the momentum going, the supervisory board authorised Managing Director Noel Forgeard in December 1999 to begin touring airlines to ask them for letters of support to gauge market demand. Assuming that sufficient commitments could be obtained, the outline plan was to speed the delayed A3XX schedule and target middle of year 2000 for the commercial launch.

Although the 1990s had turned out to be a difficult time to launch the project, the culmination of the decade was a watershed time for Airbus and its dream of market parity with Boeing. As the 1999 numbers were counted up, it became clear that Airbus had not only completely outsold its rival, but had also ended the year with 48 percent of the total number of undelivered new aircraft on firm order backlog. This must have been a great incentive for Forgeard as he left on his quest for signed letters of support.