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When it makes its maiden flight in 2005, the Airbus A380 will
be the world's first twin-aisle, twin-deck commercial aircraft. It will seat 555
people - 35 per cent more than today's largest airliner - and have 49 per cent
more space while using up to 20 per cent less fuel per passenger.
At nearly 80 metres long from nose to tail and wing-tip to
wing-tip, the A380 will incorporate the largest wings ever built at the Airbus
factory at Broughton, North Wales, where all Airbus wings are assembled. Because
of the size and weight of the aircraft, the wings are of an entirely new design,
rather than simply an extrapolation of existing concepts.
At an early stage in the design programme for the new plane, it
was decided to produce the top wing skins by creep age-forming (CAF). This
process is used by Airbus and other manufacturers to produce smaller wing skins
with less complex shapes, but nothing of the scale or complexity of the A380
components had been manufactured before in this way.
Recognising that the use of CAF for the A380 wing would take the
process into new territory, Airbus decided to look for sources of ideas outside
its usual circle of suppliers and consultants for certain key elements of the
manufacturing system. South Yorkshire engineering consultancy Bennett
Associates, who had been involved in a wide variety of projects including the
Channel Tunnel, Falkirk Wheel and Gateshead Millennium Bridge, was appointed to
work with Airbus on the design and installation of the tooling and handling
systems for producing the wing skins.
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