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The participants had travelled from all over Germany and one had even made a day trip from the UK just for the occasion. The party was a good mix of students, young members and more mature members. The visit was based around one of the commercial tours offered by Airbus.
A short introductory video about the history of Airbus and its current operations was followed by our guide outlining the current Airbus product range. This covered the latest and smallest aircraft, the A220, the innovative and now well-established single aisle machines from the A320 family - famous for their use of fly-by-wire controls, through the wide body, long range A330 & A350 and ending with the giant of the skies - the A380. Plus, not to forget, the amazing looking Beluga transport aircraft and now the larger BelugaXL, which are the mainstays of the Airbus production system moving aircraft components all over Europe...
The final part of the introduction was a massive aerial photo of the site which really enabled an appreciation of the scale of the facility on the south side of the river Elbe. Inset in the picture were some historical photos showing the evolution of the site from its first use as a flying boat facility in the 1930s via the various plant extensions, culminating with the land reclamation from tidal marshes for the new A380 buildings and the associated extension of the runway..
The Hamburg plant specialises in the assembly of aircraft fuselage sections for the A320, A330, A350 and A380 aircraft and has final assembly lines for the A320 family. Every A380 comes to Hamburg for painting and final interior outfitting in massive hangars..
Our visit to the production areas started with one of the original single final aisle assembly lines where the aircraft sections are moved between assembly stations using air cushion pallets. The assembly process started with the fuselage sections, already equipped with most of the systems were joined together in complex jigs before being moved to subsequent stations for joining the wings and tailplane to the fuselage, landing gear installation and finally engine attachment. After extensive testing at the various intermediate stations the aircraft is ready to be rolled out for painting in one of several dedicated paint shops on site..
The second stop was in a more recent A320 family final assembly line which was developed using the moving flow lines familiar to the automotive industry. The first fuselage sections entered at one end of the large hall and as the aircraft moves along we could see the various components being attached before finally directly from our balcony viewing position we could see the completed aircraft directly beneath us..
From there it we moved on to the A330 fuselage assembly which also uses moving flow line principles with 10-15 work modules incrementing through the building. The view from the balcony showed how much equipment, wiring and piping hides behind the sleek interior and exterior of a modern airliner. The basic fuselage structures were received at the first work station where panels of thermal insulation were fitted As the sections progressed through the hall, more and more piping and wiring was being added at each stage. This really helped us to appreciate the complexity of aircraft design and construction. At the final stage the external antennae were being fitted.
The end result of this production line was a fully equipped and testing fuselage section ready to be transported by Beluga to the final assembly line in Toulouse. In contrast to the wide views outward from the gallery the back wall had detail visual management display panels demonstrating the correct systems installation practices and those to be avoided. For the safety critical systems onboard the aircraft it is essential that all cables are properly supported and attached to avoid vibration and rubbing which could lead to faults. These displays highlighted the attention to detail needed in these massive production facilities..
The grand finale of our visit was to one of the massive A380 outfitting hangars where we had a fabulous view from just under the roof of the building over an A380 nearing completion with the final seats being installed. The scale of the aircraft was emphasised by there being one single aisle aircraft parked under each wing..
With our visit over we headed back to the site entrance with a very quick view of the small aircraft museum on site which contains examples of aircraft previously produced in Finkenwerder - the Nord Atlas military transport from the 1950s, the tiny Hansajet from the 1960s, the Transall Franco-German military transport produced in the 60s-70s, a newly arrived VFW614 twin-jet from the 70s and finally the Beluga's predecessor, the Super Guppy, which has its roots in the Boeing B-29 and Stratocruiser..
After we left the site some of us adjourned to a local hotel for some social networking amongst a very diverse group of engineers.