Airbus Donates Retired A330 Elevator to University of South Alabama

MOBILE, Ala. — The University of South Alabama has a new research tool worth roughly three-quarters of a million dollars, courtesy of Airbus, which donated a retired A330 elevator to the school for education and research purposes.

The part — a flight-control surface from the tail of the aircraft — measures about 28 feet long, weighs just over 200 pounds and is built from composite material. Despite its light weight, the elevator carries a repaired market value of approximately $750,000 and had logged 56,000 flight hours in service with a domestic commercial carrier before being retired and handed over to the university.

The donated elevator arrived on campus last week and was moved into the university’s Engineering Laboratory Building the following day, where researchers will put it to use studying composite materials — the same lightweight, high-strength materials used in modern aircraft hulls and increasingly in automobile manufacturing.

University researchers have spent years developing techniques to strengthen and improve carbon-fiber composites, work that has caught the attention of Airbus as the company builds out its footprint in the Mobile area. The donation reflects a deepening partnership between the university and the aerospace manufacturer, one that has grown steadily as Airbus has expanded its Gulf Coast operations.

That partnership was on display last month when a University of South Alabama delegation — joined by Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson and Dave Trent, site director for the Airbus Americas Mobile Engineering office — traveled to Airbus facilities in Toulouse, France, and Munich, Germany, to meet with company executives and tour manufacturing operations firsthand.

Following that trip, University of South Alabama President Tony G. Waldrop said Airbus executives expressed particular interest in two areas of the university’s research: cybersecurity and carbon-fiber composite development. The donated elevator gives researchers hands-on access to real aircraft components as they continue that composite materials work.

Barry Eccleston, president of Airbus Americas, said any partnership with education in Mobile amounts to an investment in the future of the aerospace industry. He pointed to the company’s Engineering Center in Mobile and the construction of its A320 Family Assembly Line as evidence that students who want to work in aerospace now have a local option to do so, and said the donated elevator is meant to give University of South Alabama students hands-on experience with the materials used in modern aircraft as they move closer to launching their careers.

Lynne Chronister, the university’s vice president for research and economic development, said extensive discussions between University of South Alabama faculty and administrators and Airbus Group engineers and leadership led to the donation, which she called a demonstration of the value of strong corporate-education partnerships. She said the university is excited about the overlap between Airbus Group’s vision and the expertise and technologies being developed on campus.

The elevator is expected to be especially useful to Dr. Kuang-Ting Hsiao, a University of South Alabama mechanical engineering professor whose research focuses on composite materials. Hsiao is developing a method of using nano-fibers to strengthen layered carbon-fiber composites, research that was the subject of a cover story just last month. Dr. John Steadman, dean of the university’s College of Engineering, said the large carbon-fiber composite part gives engineering students and faculty a unique resource for studying and testing a full-scale commercial version of the high-strength materials covered in their coursework and laboratory experiments, adding that watching the theory of composite materials become reality in the aircraft industry will give students a new perspective on their future careers.

About the part

An elevator is the hinged control surface on the trailing edge of an airplane’s horizontal tail; moving it up or down changes the aircraft’s pitch. Airbus announced its Mobile A320 Family final assembly line at the Brookley Aeroplex in 2012, and the first jet built there was delivered in 2016.