Max Kingsley-Jones/BRISTOL
Airbus Industrie is finalising plans to transport A3XX components from partner sites to the Toulouse production line, which will see large sub-assemblies travelling by barge, ship and truck.
The French site was selected as the location for A3XX final assembly in June, and preparations are being made to construct the plant, which will reportedly be known as the Aeroconstellation complex.
Airbus has decided that major A3XX components would not use air transportation as is the case with the other aircraft in the range, and the company has been working through the complex task of establishing a fast and efficient way of transporting sub-assemblies from the other Airbus sites across Europe by land and sea.
Airbus is completing a scheme, which is expected to be approved by the end of January, to move components from German and UK plants to the French port of Bordeaux using purpose-built ships leased by Airbus. A3XX sub-assemblies will be transferred to a barge for a journey along the river Garonne to a point 60km (37 miles) from Toulouse, where they will travel by truck to the assembly line. It is understood that major road alterations will need to be made along the route to allow the huge components to be transported. A3XX final assembly is due to begin in Toulouse in 2004.
The Bristol Filton-based Airbus arm of BAE Systems, which is poised to become Airbus UK when the company's integration is completed early next year, is finalising its own production and transportation plans for the A3XX's 80m-span wing. "We will start laying the foundations for the A3XX wing final assembly plant at Broughton in the third quarter of next year," says Airbus UK's manufacturing director Brian Fleet. The new building will occupy 80,000m2 and will be 500m long, and should be operational by 2003, it will eventually being capable of producing 48 wing sets per year.
Plans call for the wing to be transferred from the Broughton factory to the nearby River Dee, from where it will go by barge to docks at Mostyn or Liverpool for transfer to the Airbus ship.
A3XX fuselage sub-assemblies will be produced at the EADS Airbus plant in Hamburg. "The sub-assemblies will be transferred to Bordeaux, by ship via the River Elbe," says EADS Airbus, which adds that foundations for the A3XX plant will be laid in the third quarter of next year. The A3XX's vertical stabiliser will be produced at the Stade plant in Germany.
Meanwhile, EADS Airbus is seeking bids from construction companies to build the first30Ha phase of the A3XX final-assembly complex in Toulouse. The Aeroconstellation complex will ultimately occupy 380Ha.
Source: Flight International
