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.
For the university, the gift represents more than research equipment — it signals growing confidence from one of the world’s largest aerospace manufacturers in South Alabama’s engineering talent, at a time when Airbus continues to expand its manufacturing and engineering presence in the Mobile region.