007
Airbus,
Toulouse, France
43° 39′ 14.32″ N, 1° 21′ 45.11″ E
The A380
Passengers flying into the small airport in Toulouse are often surprised by the large number of jet aircraft parked near the main runway. These include many Airbus A380s painted in corrosion-resistant green paint, and the peculiar A300-600ST (better known as the Beluga and one of the most voluminous aircraft in the world).
None of these aircraft are ferrying passengers from Toulouse; they are awaiting a final paint job, final tests, or delivery to an airline. Toulouse is the headquarters of Airbus, and its runway is where newly built jets take to the sky for the first time. It was from the Toulouse runway that the Concorde first flew in 1969, and the double-decker Airbus A380 had its first test flight there in 2005.
Close to Toulouse airport are the Airbus factories in which the A380s undergo final assembly along with almost every other aircraft that Airbus manufactures. (The small Airbus A318, A319, and A321 aircraft are assembled in Germany.)
One way to see these aircraft is to visit Toulouse airport and sit upstairs in the viewing area overlooking the runway. Wait long enough and you’re sure to see a newly built aircraft making a test flight, or the enormous Beluga transporter arriving with parts from another Airbus site. The Beluga (Figure 7-1) is big enough to carry segments of the International Space Station or entire helicopters, and is used by Airbus to transport the entire fuselage of other Airbus aircraft from place to place.
Figure 7-1. An Airbus Beluga at Toulouse airport; courtesy of DigitalAirlines.com
For a clearer view, you can also book a tour that starts with a video presentation of the first A380 takeoff. Airbus had video cameras all over the aircraft for the occasion, and watching the expressions on the pilots’ faces is priceless. French speakers will probably catch some colorful language from the pilots when things don’t go quite as intended!
The tour continues with a bus trip around the Airbus site to view the various factories and the delivery center where aircraft are weighed before being accepted by customers. The highlight is entering the A380 factory, where the assembly of A380s can be viewed from a specially constructed viewing area.
To complete the trip, it’s possible to visit two Concordes. If you book ahead, you can climb aboard the very first production Concorde, which flew from 1973 to 1985 (and was the French president’s official plane). You can also board a more recent Concorde, which flew with Air France until 2003.
Tours end at the Airbus visitors shop, which has a surprisingly good selection of memorabilia and scale aircraft models.
Practical Information
Tours of the Airbus site are organized by a separate company; for details, see http://www.taxiway.fr/ (click the British flag for information in English). It is absolutely essential to book well ahead for these tours, as they fill up quickly.