6 ms·
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 whe
by 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 agoVarious 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 agoThat'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 agoWhile 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 agoI 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 agoFWIW there's a video of A380 parts moving through the streets, they had to be scheduled at night and the tolerances (to buildings!) are really low, it's really cool. A much larger version of the A-12 trips between Burbank and Area-51, which was also super cool.
- lispm 7y agohttps://www.airliners.de/neues-a380-transportschiff-erstmals-bei-airbus-in-hamburg/17261 https://www.airliners.de/neues-a380-transportschiff-erstmals... The ship travels to Bordeaux and from there the parts will be brought with smaller ships to Toulouse.
- baud147258 7y agoFrom what I remember of a visit to one of the sites working on the Ariane 5 rockets, those are transported by waterways