All terrain wheelchair to scale the heights of Kilimanjaro

Five Airbus engineers, who are members of the Spanish Group of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), will accompany a Paralympic athlete using the wheelchair on a journey to the Tanzanian mountain in September.

Airbus head of supply chain quality procurement Manuel Santaolalla told The Engineer that using carbon fibre will make the design as light as possible but still capable of handling the rugged terrain. At just 15kg, it will be 50% lighter than all-road wheelchairs on the market.

The team has finished a prototype, which will be tested on mountains outside Madrid.

“From a design point of view it is accurate, but from a manufacturing point of view it will bear no resemblance to the one that will go up, because basically we have riveted most of the components rather than manufacturing in one shot in composites,” Santaolalla said.

“We need to be able to move the seat, the chest plate and the leg supports, as well as other areas, so that we can implement modifications on the final design, which will be a one shot that will eliminate a lot of the weight.”