Airliners-India.com

karatecatman · Guest

Airbus is the world's largest producer of civil jetliners, having overtaken former market leader Boeing.

The Airbus site in Toulouse in the south of France, where the final assembly of most Airbus aircraft takes place.

The tour will allow you to see the new final assembly line built especially for the largest aeroplane in the world, the A380.

Wing assembly. It can take two to three years to build a plane from scratch.

This area has to be as high as the Arc de Triomphe to fit the massive aircraft in; its parts are brought to Toulouse by barge.

Testing on an A380 superjumbo wing.

Final assembly of aircraft includes joining the forward, centre and aft fuselage sections, mating the wings to the fuselage.

This is followed by the installation of the horizontal tail plane, fin, engine pylons, landing gear and engines.

The planes are flight-tested and ground-tested here with flight test pilots really part pilots/part engineers.

The tours are booked out months in advance so they need to be booked well ahead of time.

Aseem · Member Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 2841 Location: YYZ

unimaginable project management skills required.....easy for Boeing to laugh.