5 ms·

Anyone know anything about the routes that it's running? I'm surprised these kinds of large parts aren't moved around by barge.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Tomte 7y ago
Hamburg-Finkenwerder to Toulouse and back. I haven't seen the XL in person, yet, but the Beluga is a common sighting over Hamburg.
benhurmarcel 7y ago
Mostly between Toulouse, St Nazaire, Hamburg, Bremen, Broughton (Chester), and Getafe (Madrid).
rjsw 7y ago
They fly into Toulouse. The A380 parts were moved around by barge but there were problems getting them the final bit by road. Have seen the older Beluga taking off and landing from Blagnac when I have been there.
nuccy 7y ago
You can track it by its flight number AIB45XL or call sign F-WBXL e.g. here https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/f-wbxl https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/f-wbxl
infc 7y ago
They are also moved by barge. http://a380.boards.net/thread/824/airbus-on-board-ship http://a380.boards.net/thread/824/airbus-on-board-ship
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
txcwpalpha 7y ago
Moving the parts by plane works better because the place where the parts are needed (aka the factory where they are put together) is at an airport, which is where this thing can land and directly offload right into the factory. Barges are tougher because unless there is a waterway directly next to the factory/airport (which isn't the case for Airbus's main factories AFAIK), it can be hard transporting such large pieces via streets between the waterway and the factory.
- lispm 7y ago
  Various parts of the Airbus planes are moved with ships between factories. Airbus ship at the Hamburg Finkenwerder factory: https://shipsnmoreships.smugmug.com/ShipsinEuropeanWaters/Hamburg-Cuxhaven-Elbe/CITY-OF-HAMBURG-Finkenwerder/ https://shipsnmoreships.smugmug.com/ShipsinEuropeanWaters/Ha...
  - txcwpalpha 7y ago
    That's a cool lookin boat. Airbus's factory in Hamburg is right on the Elbe, so it makes sense that they would use barges for transport to/from it. The factories in Toulouse and Seville are a bit farther from any waterways afaik.
    - masklinn 7y ago
      While not on the Garonne itself, Airbus Toulouse is pretty close (3km), however it's way farther inland from the sea, on a smaller river, and IIRC there are pretty low lying bridges on the way, so they have to move the parts to river barges.
      - txcwpalpha 7y ago
        I also think even that 3km can be challenging when you're talking about having to move objects that are the length of a small skyscraper through narrow, twisty streets. I found this picture of such a move [1]. I wonder how often they have to do this! 1: https://airbus-h.assetsadobe2.com/is/image/content/dam/channel-specific/website-/company/history_milestones/A380_road_transport.jpg https://airbus-h.assetsadobe2.com/is/image/content/dam/chann... edit: I found this page [2] where it talks about moving A380 parts to Toulouse. It sounds like it does happen via the Garonne, but not anywhere even remotely close to Toulouse! > Here, the components are transferred to specially-designed barges, which carry them on the penultimate part of their 95 km. voyage up Garonne River from Pauillac to Langon. ... In Langon, aircraft sections are transferred to outsized-load trucks to complete their journey to Toulouse by road. That means the wings and other components have to travel more than 200km from Langon to Toulouse by road, which is wild. Good thing a lot of that is relatively empty countryside rather than packed city streets. 2: https://www.airbus.com/aircraft/how-is-an-aircraft-built/transport-of-major-aircraft-sections.html https://www.airbus.com/aircraft/how-is-an-aircraft-built/tra...
masklinn 7y ago
Parts are also moved by barge, this allows moving them much faster between facilities. They run around Europe as Airbus has very distributed facilities for political reasons (it's a multinational project and thus has facilities in various countries), though mostly between Hamburg and Toulouse. From time to time they also get chartered for non-airbus cargo: space program parts (that was a primary use case of its Super Guppy ancestor), copters to air show, relief supplies, and Liberty Leading the People between France and Japan in 1999 (as the painting was too large to fit in a 747).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Tomte 7y ago

Hamburg-Finkenwerder to Toulouse and back. I haven't seen the XL in person, yet, but the Beluga is a common sighting over Hamburg.

benhurmarcel 7y ago

Mostly between Toulouse, St Nazaire, Hamburg, Bremen, Broughton (Chester), and Getafe (Madrid).

rjsw 7y ago

They fly into Toulouse. The A380 parts were moved around by barge but there were problems getting them the final bit by road. Have seen the older Beluga taking off and landing from Blagnac when I have been there.

nuccy 7y ago

You can track it by its flight number AIB45XL or call sign F-WBXL e.g. here https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/f-wbxl https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/f-wbxl

infc 7y ago

They are also moved by barge. http://a380.boards.net/thread/824/airbus-on-board-ship http://a380.boards.net/thread/824/airbus-on-board-ship

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

txcwpalpha 7y ago

Moving the parts by plane works better because the place where the parts are needed (aka the factory where they are put together) is at an airport, which is where this thing can land and directly offload right into the factory. Barges are tougher because unless there is a waterway directly next to the factory/airport (which isn't the case for Airbus's main factories AFAIK), it can be hard transporting such large pieces via streets between the waterway and the factory.

lispm 7y ago
Various parts of the Airbus planes are moved with ships between factories. Airbus ship at the Hamburg Finkenwerder factory: https://shipsnmoreships.smugmug.com/ShipsinEuropeanWaters/Hamburg-Cuxhaven-Elbe/CITY-OF-HAMBURG-Finkenwerder/ https://shipsnmoreships.smugmug.com/ShipsinEuropeanWaters/Ha...
- txcwpalpha 7y ago
  That's a cool lookin boat. Airbus's factory in Hamburg is right on the Elbe, so it makes sense that they would use barges for transport to/from it. The factories in Toulouse and Seville are a bit farther from any waterways afaik.
  - masklinn 7y ago
    While not on the Garonne itself, Airbus Toulouse is pretty close (3km), however it's way farther inland from the sea, on a smaller river, and IIRC there are pretty low lying bridges on the way, so they have to move the parts to river barges.
    - txcwpalpha 7y ago
      I also think even that 3km can be challenging when you're talking about having to move objects that are the length of a small skyscraper through narrow, twisty streets. I found this picture of such a move [1]. I wonder how often they have to do this! 1: https://airbus-h.assetsadobe2.com/is/image/content/dam/channel-specific/website-/company/history_milestones/A380_road_transport.jpg https://airbus-h.assetsadobe2.com/is/image/content/dam/chann... edit: I found this page [2] where it talks about moving A380 parts to Toulouse. It sounds like it does happen via the Garonne, but not anywhere even remotely close to Toulouse! > Here, the components are transferred to specially-designed barges, which carry them on the penultimate part of their 95 km. voyage up Garonne River from Pauillac to Langon. ... In Langon, aircraft sections are transferred to outsized-load trucks to complete their journey to Toulouse by road. That means the wings and other components have to travel more than 200km from Langon to Toulouse by road, which is wild. Good thing a lot of that is relatively empty countryside rather than packed city streets. 2: https://www.airbus.com/aircraft/how-is-an-aircraft-built/transport-of-major-aircraft-sections.html https://www.airbus.com/aircraft/how-is-an-aircraft-built/tra...

masklinn 7y ago

Parts are also moved by barge, this allows moving them much faster between facilities. They run around Europe as Airbus has very distributed facilities for political reasons (it's a multinational project and thus has facilities in various countries), though mostly between Hamburg and Toulouse. From time to time they also get chartered for non-airbus cargo: space program parts (that was a primary use case of its Super Guppy ancestor), copters to air show, relief supplies, and Liberty Leading the People between France and Japan in 1999 (as the painting was too large to fit in a 747).