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Post by peter on Jul 15, 2013 15:28:19 GMT 1
Of course Airbus has some sort of storage. There is just no way they can built, transport, assemble, modify and deliver all these A380's exactly in order. Doing that would be a logistic nightmare, costs would be higher than profits on the aircraft.
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mjoelnir
in service - 2 years
Posts: 4,089
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Post by mjoelnir on Jul 15, 2013 18:31:53 GMT 1
The last discussion was not about storage, there has always been some storage of fuselage parts, but storage of wings. Fuselage parts have been seen before and they are customized, wings in storage have jet to be seen by somebody and they are not customized.
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Post by eastmids13 on Jul 16, 2013 9:00:05 GMT 1
The last discussion was not about storage, there has always been some storage of fuselage parts, but storage of wings. Fuselage parts have been seen before and they are customized, wings in storage have jet to be seen by somebody and they are not customized. I should be in Chester next week - I'll have a look at the West Factory to see if there are any wings outside! :-) If I catch up with my ex colleagues I'll ask them what their recollections from the past were.
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XWB
in service - 11 years
Posts: 16,115
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Post by XWB on Jul 16, 2013 9:06:44 GMT 1
That would be nice, eastmids13.
In the meantime, I asked a painter in Brougton the same question and he is not aware of any storage locations in Brougton. According to him, the MSN numbers can be swapped if a customer defers the delivery. Wings are the same for all customers. So IMO, MSN117 will get the new wing design straight out of the factory.
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Post by eastmids13 on Jul 16, 2013 9:19:48 GMT 1
Ref storage for wings:
Airbus UK used to have a shorter summer break than their colleagues on the continent, during this time we continued to build wings at the same rate as the weeks before & after the factory shutdown, this meant we needed to store a number of completed wing sets.
For A320 we had a rate of around 28-32/month, therefore up to 7 or 8 sets would need to be stored, A330/A340 (same final assembly shed) at a rate of 6-7 would mean 1-2 sets & on A380 at a rate of 1-2 (or 0.03 when delays finally agreed) up to 1 set. The slow down on A380 however had meant a number of wingsets being built that could not be shipped so a number of sets were outside the factory in the mid 2000s - I'll not go into the Engineering Change & retro-fit processes.
On google maps if you look for Manor Lane, Chester Road near Broughton you can see the A380 factory (the one with what looks to be 6 light greeen/grey ribs over the roof) on google maps - if you go NE on the current snapshot to the river Dee you can actually see a wing on it's side waiting to be loaded on a barge to be taken up the river Dee to the RoRo ferry. There also looks to be a new shed at the NE corner of the A380 factory which is probably to store 1 wing set /work in progress prior to being shuttled to the river Dee - all other families go by air freight by Beluga).
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Post by eastmids13 on Jul 16, 2013 9:47:25 GMT 1
That would be nice, eastmids13. In the meantime, I asked a painter in Brougton the same question and he is not aware of any storage locations in Brougton. According to him, the MSN numbers can be swapped if a customer defers the delivery. Wings are the same for all customers. So IMO, MSN117 will get the new wing design straight out of the factory. Quite correct - as previously mentioned the freighter wing was a different design, all passenger ones (should be) the same, only updated by engineering change (eg ribs). Not sure what happened to all the freighter parts or how far through the production process the initial wing(s) were...I seem to think we made at least one...if so it is probably somewhere (buut I may be dreaming the whole production thing).
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XWB
in service - 11 years
Posts: 16,115
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Post by XWB on Jul 23, 2013 11:10:54 GMT 1
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Post by eastmids13 on Jul 25, 2013 10:13:14 GMT 1
I drove past the West Factory at Broughton (well I did a loop around the whole lot), unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me) - couldn't see any wings directly outside but there was one that had been taken over the road to the loading area at the river. If you look at Broughton on google maps you can see the track the A380 wings take from the West Factory to the river.
I got a quick shot on my phone but it was some way from the road so looks quite small, I'll see how it looks on screen & if half decent I'll post it. Didn't catch up with my old team but will do in 10 days.
On another note if anyone in the UK saw 'Here come the Sheriffs' last night on BBC1 they were serving a notice on Airbus UK in Filton for an unpaid hearing loss case - all the initial footage was actually the A380 plant at Broughton (the whole story was a bit of an own goal for Airbus to be honest).
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Linie 9
in service - 1 year
Posts: 2,761
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Post by Linie 9 on Aug 2, 2013 10:36:54 GMT 1
Today at XFW: construction of the first structural parts for MSN 166 started (Etihad #1)
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XWB
in service - 11 years
Posts: 16,115
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Post by XWB on Aug 2, 2013 10:43:58 GMT 1
Nice, on time for a delivery at the very end of 2014.
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