We are in Toulouse at the moment. Today, we went on a tour of the airbus factory! Saw 3 airbus being put together, and another 3 being tested outdoors, and one other already painted with the Singapore Airlines logo on it's tail, about to be delivered!! We couldn't get close... the whole tour was conducted behind a perspex wall! It seems parts are manufactured all over the world, i.e. wings in Germany, RR engine in England, seats in Poland, etc. and the whole plane is brought together in Toulouse. The logistics of it all are confounding, not to mention how they transport a whole wing down the road!
The second tour we went on at the airport was much better! It was called a 'heritage tour' and we got to see prototypes of old aircraft, as well as sit in and hear all about the Concord! Just amazing. The death of the Concord was it's fuel consumption... a ton of fuel just to take off... 90 tons to cross the Atlantic. It became un-economical in a big way. But it went from Paris to NY in 3 hours!
Even more amazing is... we went on our motor scooter... across the busy city of Toulouse, down the periferique (a 3-lane ring road) and out past the airport to the airbus factory.
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