World’s First A380 Gets New Mission: Flying Airbus’ Open Fan Engine

The superjumbo that started it all is getting a second life — as the flying lab for the open fan engine Airbus and CFM say could cut jet fuel burn by 20%.

Airbus and CFM International are preparing to mount an open fan demonstrator engine on the first Airbus A380 ever built, turning the superjumbo into a flying test lab for next-generation aircraft propulsion.

The aircraft is A380 MSN1, registered F-WWOW, which has served as Airbus’ primary flight test platform since its manufacture. Airbus and CFM revealed the jet’s new “A380 Flight Lab” livery at the Farnborough International Airshow on July 21, 2026, after completing a joint conceptual flight-test design review.

The open fan engine strips away the casing that surrounds a conventional turbofan, allowing for a much larger fan. CFM says the design is targeting a 20% reduction in fuel consumption and carbon emissions compared with today’s engines, while preserving the cruise speeds of a standard turbofan — up to Mach 0.8.

The technology is intended for future single-aisle jetliners, not the double-deck A380 carrying it aloft. Airbus and CFM plan a first flight test campaign on MSN1 in Toulouse, France, in 2029 or 2030, with commercial entry into service targeted for 2035.

The push comes as the aviation industry faces international commitments to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and as conventional ducted turbofans approach the physical limits of propulsive efficiency. In jet propulsion, a higher bypass ratio — the proportion of air that bypasses the engine core rather than passing through it — improves fuel efficiency. But ducted fans must grow heavier and draggier to raise that ratio. Removing the casing lets the fan grow larger without the weight penalty, and CFM says its open fan design could exceed a bypass ratio of 70-to-1, more than six times that of today’s LEAP engines.

“New propulsion technologies will play an important role in achieving aviation’s net-zero objectives, along with new aircraft designs and sustainable energy sources,” Sabine Klauke, Airbus’ chief technical officer, said. “By evaluating, maturing and validating open fan engine architecture using a dedicated flight test demonstrator, we are collaboratively making yet another significant contribution to the advancement of technology bricks that will enable us to reach our industry-wide decarbonisation targets.”

Gaël Méheust, president and CEO of CFM International, said the program builds on more than 1.4 billion hours of engine flight experience across the company’s fleet. “Our engineers are doing a fantastic job maturing the most advanced technologies the industry has seen to date while balancing this innovation with the experience of more than 1.4 billion engine flight hours,” Méheust said. “As CFM, we have a unique understanding of our customers’ day-to-day operations and the important role that durability and maintainability play, in addition to efficiency. All of those learnings are at the core of everything we are doing with the RISE program.”

CFM launched the RISE demonstration program in June 2021. Airbus and CFM announced the A380 open fan flight-test demonstrator agreement at the 2022 Farnborough Airshow, on July 19 of that year. At the time, Méheust said the program was “all about pushing the technology envelope, redefining the art of the possible, and helping to achieve more sustainable long-term growth for our industry,” adding that CFM, its parent companies and Airbus “share the same vision and commitment for the future.”

Arjan Hegeman, vice president of future of flight engineering at GE Aerospace, a CFM parent company, said the program has moved beyond concept work. “While Open Fan is a new architecture, the technologies inside have been proven over decades of innovation,” Hegeman said. “We’re testing real, full-size Open Fan hardware, showing real progress and a renewed ambition from CFM to advance the RISE program and deliver the vital technology step-changes for durability and efficiency to power the future of air travel.”

Pierre Cottenceau, executive vice president of engineering and R&T at Safran Aircraft Engines, said, “The RISE program is gaining strong momentum, moving from concept to reality. More than 2,000 CFM engineers are advancing the technologies that will enable the next generation of propulsion.”

Airbus chose the four-engine A380 partly because it can safely fly on its three conventional turbofans if the experimental engine shuts down in flight, and because its two-deck cabin has room for test instrumentation and data computing racks. Operating a four-engine aircraft as a flight-test platform is inherently more costly than using a smaller twin-engine testbed, industry analysts note.

The open fan itself uses a single rotating front rotor stage with variable-pitch, carbon-fiber composite blades, followed by a row of stationary outlet guide vanes that direct airflow and can pitch to act as airbrakes, eliminating the need for heavy mechanical thrust reversers. Airbus is weighing whether to mount the demonstrator on a reinforced pylon on the rear fuselage or at the inboard No. 3 engine position on the wing.

Before flight testing begins, Airbus and CFM have logged more than 500 hours of wind tunnel evaluations during the first ‘minimum body’ test campaign at European research facilities. High-speed testing took place at the French aerospace lab ONERA, using 1:5.5-scale minimum body models in 2024 and 1:11-scale full aircraft models in 2026. Low-speed and acoustic testing was conducted at the Dutch-German DNW facility with 1:7-scale models in late 2024, and is moving to Airbus’ Filton site in the United Kingdom with 1:14-scale models in 2026 to study takeoff and landing noise and wing-flap interactions.

The RISE Open Fan effort has drawn European Union backing through the Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking. The OFELIA project, a €139.18 million effort to mature open fan technology, began Nov. 1, 2022. Safran Aircraft Engines launched a follow-on project, TAKE OFF, on March 5, 2026, with a €100 million grant to assemble the demonstrator engine and prepare it for A380 flight testing.

“TAKE OFF embodies the European Union and aerospace industry’s shared ambition to make aviation more sustainable,” Cottenceau, then identified as vice president of engineering, research and technology at Safran Aircraft Engines, said when the project launched. “We’re proud to partner with leading industry players on this pivotal project shaping our sector’s future. Project synergies will pave the way for a full-scale Open Fan engine flight demonstration, showcasing the competitive benefits of such architecture in terms of energy efficiency and acoustic performances.”

María Calvo, head of unit for project management at the Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking, said the project would need to prove the design is workable at a larger scale. “The Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking is excited to launch this flagship action for the programme and notably for the short/medium-range aircraft thrust,” Calvo said. “Building on the good results shown with OFELIA and COMPANION, TAKE OFF must now demonstrate the viability of the disruptive Open Fan engine concept at a higher maturity level, in line with the flight test campaign expected for 2029.”

CFM, Airbus and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore also signed a memorandum of understanding in 2026 to run open fan airport trials at Changi and Seletar airports, assessing ground safety, taxiway clearance, noise and jet blast behavior.

A related but separate effort is also underway. RTX business Collins Aerospace completed integrated lab testing on July 22, 2026, at its “The Grid” facility in Rockford, Illinois, for the EU Clean Aviation project SWITCH, which is developing a hybrid-electric version of Pratt & Whitney’s ducted Geared Turbofan — a different architecture from CFM’s open fan. Collins validated megawatt-class motor-generators on a GTF controller and is transferring the components to Airbus for a follow-on program, LEIA, for ground testing in 2027.

“This is the largest integrated systems test conducted at The Grid since its opening in 2023,” said Kristin Smith, Collins Aerospace’s vice president of electric power systems. “By combining our technology expertise with deep industry collaboration, we are demonstrating how hybrid-electric systems can significantly reduce fuel consumption for next-generation aircraft.”

Open rotor engines are not a new idea. General Electric tested its GE36 Unducted Fan on Boeing 727 and McDonnell Douglas MD-80 testbeds in the 1980s, demonstrating 20% fuel savings, but the program was shelved amid high noise levels and falling jet fuel prices. Safran Aircraft Engines previously ground-tested a counter-rotating open rotor under the EU’s Clean Sky initiative at Istres, France, part of earlier open-rotor research the RISE design has since simplified. CFM’s RISE program simplifies that earlier approach by using a single rotating fan stage instead of two counter-rotating rotors, reducing weight and mechanical complexity.

Airbus delivered its final commercial A380 to Emirates in 2021, as airlines increasingly favor twin-engine widebodies such as the A350 and Boeing 787. But MSN1 has continued flying as an experimental platform: It previously flight-tested the Trent XWB engine that powers the A350, and it is also slated to support hydrogen combustion flight trials.