There's an 80-foot-long Airbus A380 being built on a shady street in a Californian town's business district, the San Bernardino Sun reports. A group of 30 or so workers are busy sanding and painting this steel and fibreglass model, preparing it for a high profile role at Heathrow Airport.

The Emirates Airlines branded superjumbo being made by Penwal Industries is a one-third the size scale model of of the actual aircraft. And even at one third size, the replica has a wing span of 88 feet and is the size of a Boeing 737 

The model plane will be on display at an airport roundabout for advertising purposes. The current outdoor site has remained empty since the BA Concorde replica was removed last year (it was sitting in BA compound at Terminal 3 the last time we visited the airport).

According to the newspaper, the model A380 will be finished by the end of the month and transported to London via LA / Ontario International Airport. But because the model plane will still be huge at one-third scale, Penwal is building it in three sections so it can fit inside an Antonov An 225, the world's largest aircraft.

On a recent afternoon, workers at Penwal's 61,000-square- foot facility, who have been working on this project since February, were prepping the plane for a labor intensive paint job. The plane dwarfed other current projects at the company but the A380 falls short of Penwal's biggest work - a full-scale Saturn V rocket which stands 365 feet tall and weighs 600 tons. The model is displayed in Huntsville, Ala., home to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

The A380 is scheduled to leave Ontario on July 3. Once in London, it will take a week to assemble.

Source http://www.uk-airport-news.info