New Sharklets for Airbus A350-1000

Airbus announced to introduced new larger Sharklets for the A350 later this year. The A350 marketing director Francois Obe said at the Singapore airshow that Airbus plans to introduce a package called “incremental developments” for A350, in which many aerodynamic developments will be added based on the research outcome.

The new sharklets will increase the effective wingspan close to 212 ft. The title photo shows how Airbus has been improving the sharklets from its original A350-900 delivered to Vietnam Airlines to its next MSN001 test airplane.

According to article by Bjorn Fehrm posted on Leeman, “There is a widespread misunderstanding that winglets are designed to change the way the wingtip vortices are flowing….. The winglet and wing changes the complete (air)flow around and behind the wing. This total change of the flow pattern is what reduces the drag, not any local change in the vortices around the wingtips.” and added..

Airbus has been improving the aerodynamics of A350 wings and sharklets “Airbus knew there was potential to improve the spanload distribution for the wing. Such changes are normally done with adaptation of the spanwise twist of the wing. It was done this way for the A380.”
“For the A350, Airbus decided to combine a change of the wing twist with a taller, different shape winglet, to get an even wider and more optimal spanload distribution”