The Making Of The $10 Billion Airbus A380 | The Giant Of The SkyAirbus | Spark

foreign gamble the building of the biggest passenger plane the world has ever seen this aircraft cannot be a failure we've already spent billions of dollars on this project and we do have a few billions to spend yes it's a tale of top secret research and development of confidential business deals but above all intense personal pressure these moments really pissed me off this is Precision Engineering on a mammoth scale a Race Against Time to construct the largest airliner in history the Airbus A318 [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you're looking at what Airbus hope is the future of Aviation about to be assembled for the very first time three giant pieces of fuselage will soon become the body of a truly vast flying machine over three times as long as a blue whale five times as heavy [Music] the A380 marks a new era in airliners a 555 seat double decker super jumbo able to fly non-stop a third of the way around the globe this project is an enormous challenge will the parts fit together will it be built on time just getting this far has taken courage and amazing ingenuity [Music] over 10 years in the making the dream is of a new kind of plane built in an extraordinary way [Applause] all over the world massive new factories are building parts for the new machine [Music] [Applause] it's made using state-of-the-art methods and high-tech materials but that's just the start transporting the giant parts to Southwestern France has been an incredible feat in itself traveling by river sea land and air components have covered thousands of miles ducking low bridges squeezing through tiny French villages in the middle of the night thank you but the next phase is the toughest yet the aircraft must be assembled to the tightest of tolerances [Music] the engines the landing gear the cockpit the computers must all be tested with the parts finally gathered together Airbus is about to find out if their Grand Vision will work the stakes couldn't be higher when you invest 10.7 billion dollars on building what we're pronouncing to be the flagship of the 21st Century you can't fail there isn't what we almost got there or it's so so not too shabby no either it's going to be that Flagship of the 21st Century or it's going to be a disaster [Music] here in Toulouse Southwestern France the company will find out if that huge gamble pays off in a factory big enough to hold 16 football pitches they have just 11 months to build the first flying prototype the clock is ticking the first task is to join seven major components into one vast aircraft a process that should take just over five weeks this is a critical phase the parts must be assembled perfectly if the planes to fly as efficiently as Airbus expects a mistake here would mean the Prototype is flawed which would delay the entire program we need to be very very accurate we have to be sure that the general the shape of the aircraft is in line with the specification then that the geometry of the aircraft is good and to avoid twist fuselage or twist Wings the performance of the aircraft depends on this shape is in charge of the main structural assembly of the A380 building any airliner requires precision but ensuring that the three enormous body sections of this 240 foot long giant are brought together in a perfectly straight line presents his team with an exceptional challenge I think that's an interesting thing this one piece will make 52 layers watch on mobile devices or the big screen all for free no subscription or fire I'm I'm I feel very confident now even if it's difficult because we have we have put in place a very accurate systems the key to success lies in the use of lasers as invisible beams scan the sections of fuselage they are reflected by mirrors mounted on the approaching components from this reflected light a computer can work out the exact relative positions of the parts ensuring perfect alignment blue thank you once positioned the fuselage shells are brought together very very slowly [Music] Pascal beloved Zeus uses a remote control panel to maneuver the sections each turn on the dial brings the massive Parts a tenth of an inch closer together moved by huge mobile pillars supporting the shells on the left a part made in Germany on the right one made in France this is the last stage of a 1200 mile Journey well the trick the trick is to be organized and then it should go okay we're in good shape I think to start the joining of the fuselage now the clearance is so tight that metal shoe horns are needed to ease one shell over the other speed it up this is the biggest airliner ever coming together at last just as planned the sections fit together perfectly the overlap is just six inches wide and ten thousand rivets will soon hold the French and german-built parts together forever for some the sleepless nights are over but even as Engineers celebrate an important Milestone the pressure mounts on the sales team Airbus has to convince the world's Airlines they really do want to play with 45 more volume than a Boeing 747 the worst that could happen to Airbus I guess right now after having invested the money getting the airplane ready is the world's Airlines come they take a look at it and they say well it's not exactly what we had in mind they've got to come they've got to look at this airplane and they've got to be impressed [Applause] selling planes at 146 million pounds apiece is not a stroll in the park for John Leahy the pressure is mounting 250 sales are needed for the project to break even so far he's got 139 firm orders today the bosses of Australian Airline Qantas are coming to check on their 1.8 billion pound investment we're gonna go out and greet them yeah okay well it's Chris this is our time are they gonna get about a 10 minute warning or something on the bus it has to go smoothly this is one of our best customers one of our bigger customers now for the 380 program and we want to make sure that they're happy that they get the answers from us they want and they go away with a good impression you can imagine what would happen if they came here and said oh my Heavens the A380 isn't what we thought it would be in front of their entire board that could be devastating after a presentation the group will visit a showroom mock-up at the Aircraft Interior it's only then that John Leahy will find out if the Australians like what they see steak is not only billions of pounds but the pride and perhaps the future of the company as well it's going to be a long day June 2004 and the world's biggest airliner is on schedule but only just two weeks into the structural assembly it's vital to keep momentum going if the planes to fly on time head of the program Charles Champions admits the schedule is tight it's it's going fast it's going fast it's like a race size like a mountain but like any marathon it's easy at the beginning and then it starts to be more difficult and I think we are starting to reach that point now so the question is to manage your energy in order to be able to to deliver the project next they have to attach the vast British built wings but some unscheduled adjustments are needed on the fittings for the joint as with any prototype teething troubles are inevitable and project leader Eddie Davis has to respond quickly to these daily challenges it can happen with new aircraft this is a last minute job that we've had to just come up today and we didn't know that the fittings weren't the right standard so now the guys will be working them the huge components are 119 feet long and weigh over 40 tonnes each designing them has been an amazingly complex process to get them this far has already taken over seven years of work [Music] one of the earliest challenges was to minimize something generated by all large aircraft a potentially lethal invisible phenomenon called wake turbulence [Music] all planes create spinning pockets of air as they pass unseen whirlwinds can cause Havoc for planes flying close behind wake turbulence is most dangerous in the crowded Skies near an airport and planes are kept at least two minutes apart to reduce the danger the bigger the plane the more powerful and deadly the Wake can be the massive A380 could bring airports to a standstill [Music] challenge was to analyze how the turbulence was generated and to try to minimize the effect [Applause] detailed research program was carried out in this French aerodynamics lab [Music] a precise scale model of the A380 was accelerated along an overhead track and launched into the air [Music] at the far side of the hall is a mountain of finely chopped K-pop foam designed to give the sophisticated model a soft Landing a curtain of smoke scanned by a laser shows the effect of the planes it passes this is the normally invisible turbulence from video recordings the researchers were able to study how it starts at the wingtip and grows rapidly into tightly constrained regions of spinning air full size these vortices can have the power to flip a following aircraft upside down after each test the model was dug out of the foam cleaned off and prepared for the next run the data gathered here combined with results from wind tunnel tests and computer modeling gave the designers the clues they needed to tackle the problem their solution is a wing design featuring these distinctive flared wingtips as a result the massive A380 should produce no more turbulence than any other large airliner none of this will matter though if the wings are not perfectly positioned when attached to the body of the plane time may be tied but this operation cannot be rushed this is the point where we'll slowly align the wing with the fuselage and then adjust the angle for the best aerodynamic performance the efficiency of the plane really depends on us getting this right certainly without a doubt again the laser positioning system ensures the wing is in the right place and at the right angle but after a whole day of careful work a problem appears some large bolts have been left attached to the wing we must remove this one for for finished the junction of the Wind a quick phone call to check that it's okay and they're swiftly removed to allow the build to carry on [Music] a couple of miles away at the immaculately manicured Airbus headquarters John Leahy is conducting his guided tour for Qantas they have arrived at the Airbus showroom a vast facility full of cabin demonstrators of each type of Airbus plane okay now I think we've got just about everybody [Music] this is deadly serious the Qantas top brows will soon get their first sight of a realistic A380 interior if they don't like it they'll be trouble ahead it's almost like a young family introducing their new baby to the relatives you want everybody to be impressed you want everybody to say it's beautiful and deep down inside you're really waiting to see what they truly do say Jeff Dixon head of the Australian Airline is a tough talking no-nonsense businessman just the type of customer that Airbus must satisfy if the machine is to be a success but to begin with he doesn't look too excited we've got to deliver we made the promises and now we have to deliver on those promises and how do you know if you're really delivering you look to the airlines to the customer he's got to say yes John presses on with the walkabout and then almost in a whisper Jeff Reveals His true feelings and that's the way the the liners is fabulous better than we expected when we ordered but we did expect a lot so right up their expectations what's this although the colors and layout will change for Jeff Dixon's planes this mock-up represents one hard reality billions of pounds already spent on an Airbus that has yet to leave the ground now I wouldn't go as far as to say they bet the shop on it but they've certainly bet a lot on it but then by the same token we're not betting the shop I'm buying it but we're making a huge commitment to an aircraft that hasn't flown now we know and very confident that it will fly and it will fly very very well but still we're all making very very big commitments and taking quite a few chances in a development like this there are now just 10 months till the plane is scheduled to fly [Music] it's now mid-june and as the pressure builds to create the biggest passenger plane ever there's zero time to waste [Applause] this is the horizontal tail plane with a span of 105 feet it's as big as the wings of a small airliner [Applause] [Music] made of carbon fiber in South and Central Spain it's easily the biggest tail plane ever made [Music] the tail fin is another carbon fiber monster 46 feet high this component is made near Hamburg in Germany when installed it will stand as high as an eight-story building airports will have to buy new cranes to service it carefully it's craned into place and attached with 24 titanium bolts [Music] [Applause] [Music] Charles Champions head of the program comes to check on progress the guy who runs this station has bad news for the boss we got a problem with this the tail cone it's six millimeters out of Tolerance side to side uh it's not good not good the last piece of fuselage the spanish-built tail cone is out of line six millimeters overall no from side to side okay okay this is a more serious problem and will take three days to sort out time they really don't have I think it's uh it's one of it's one of those phases when where the success of the project is at reach but you have many elements to tackle in parallel in order to make it happen so uh you're under control but you've got to work uh fast and several parallel subjects in order to be able to deliver the project at the end the next stage is to install the landing gear these massive Parts have to be unbelievably strong not only is the A380 the biggest passenger plane ever built unfortunately landing gear in general takes a terrific pounding in the real world [Music] most landing gear Engineers have this low resolution video clip on their computers a reminder of the extreme conditions that can occur heading for the now disused kaitak airport in Hong Kong is a Boeing 747 approaching in a crosswind the left-hand gear takes the full weight of this huge plane as it hits the tarmac that such a difficult Landing can be successful as this one was is an amazing feat of engineering that gear was made by the Goodrich Corporation who are also supplying the main landing gear for the A380 here near Toronto in Canada production is well underway and testing is just about to begin when we have a new landing gear program we have a lot of tests that we need to do strength performance Dynamics durability this one is a performance test this is one of the first tests we do it's one of the more important tasks it's called a drop test what it is is a simulation of Landing so when aircraft lands uh near 380 lands 560 tons of aircraft moving slowly towards the ground as well as 200 miles an hour down the runway when the aircraft hits the ground something has got to absorb that energy so if you jump off a chair you land your knees have to bend and give a little bit even just with the weight of a person you're going to damage yourself if nothing gives so that giving of your knees your legs are absorbing energy that's what the landing gear has to do but it has to do it for instead of 180 pounds it's got to do it for 560 tons suspended inside this huge Tower the landing gear is raised in preparation for the drop the rig is static so to simulate the approaching ground speed smaller Wheels driven by powerful electric motors spin the big 55-inch tires in the reverse Direction [Music] when a switch is flicked in the control room a hook at the top of the tower will release allowing the gear to form it must absorb the same energy as a hundred mile an hour car crash without being damaged it's a critical phase in the whole program this could be a make or break test if if the performance of the landing gear isn't what we predicted it to be it could impact the schedule for the first flight so it's essential that the gear performs how we predicted it and from these tests we'll be happy to tell whether it does soon they'll find out if their latest and largest landing gear will make the grade although it's huge this 6.5 ton component is just part of the a380s undercarriage in total it will have two six wheel units plus two four-wheel units under the wings and a two-wheeled set under the nose so what you're about to see is only a fraction of the energy involved when the vast machine touches down [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] the test goes well early data shows that although there was an unwanted shudder as the wheels came to a halt the landing gear Shrugged off the huge impact with ease back at the factory there's more good news with the tail cone and dozens of other problems fixed first flying A380 is about to leave the main assembly station for Gil Cormier it's a good moment maybe we forget a little the trouble we encounter during the the past weeks and now we are looking at the the aircraft itself the achievements more than the difficulties we added now's the chance to see at last the biggest airliner ever built [Applause] [Music] thank you foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] with the shell of the world's largest airliner complete things are about to get really complicated July 2004 and the plane is scheduled to spend the next few months in this massive horn where thousands of parts will be fitted including over 500 miles of wiring the man in charge of this tricky phase is fully aware there's an awful lot of work to do by the end of October it's a very difficult challenge very difficult challenge because it's a prototype so it's very difficult to to meet our deadline coming up is August the traditional holiday month in France when most of the country shuts down for Airbus Engineers there will be no holiday my family are very aware of this personal challenge so everybody in the family is okay to say okay okay this year it's the aircraft here the plane is lifted on huge Jacks and teams of technicians Begin work [Applause] [Music] the plan is for the aircraft to be revealed to the world in a grand ceremony just 196 days from now [Music] attending will be heads of state and government 5 000 guests and the world's media with the pictures beamed by satellite all over the world but just now this 55 year old man has a rather special interest in the new machine Jack Rose will be the first person in the world to fly the plane seeing it for the first time his reaction is not exactly what you'd expect generally speaking might say it's enough larger than the one we have already but I think I feel very very confident [Music] it's confident because although the plane is still far from finished he and his team have already spent thousands of hours flying in here in these state-of-the-art simulators lies the heart and soul of the new plane already living already being tested like most modern airliners the A380 has a fly-by-wire system where the crew in reality are controlling a computer which then controls the plane you don't realize that your fly is such a bigger cut you you fly it like you fly a a little archaft it's it's incredible it's very very easy to fly like a bicycle it's a kind of large bicycle three two the technology means they can make it handle in almost any way they choose you could make an airplane that when you turn right goes left or when you turn left goes right for example do anything Fernando Alonso will also be on the first flight like all Airbus Pilots his first priority is safety especially if one of the complex systems were to fail designing an airplane to work when everything works is relatively easy it's it's building the airplane or designing the airplane to work correctly with failures it's a little bit more difficult yes today they're pushing this system to the Limit they're testing a scenario so perilous that it's only likely to occur once in over a thousand years of flying will the plane remain controllable if the wings were covered in ice two of the engines had failed and half of the flight computers had gone offline no beta 7 8 piece of cake piece of cake piece of cake this kind of sophistication comes at a price the engineering that makes the plane so safe is also extremely complex and when battling against a deadline complexity eats valuable time the schedule is slipping work continues at a feverish Pace as thousands of components big and small are fitted we can't relax we can't relax we have no right we have no time to relax so every hour every minute we are there on the workshop our main job is to receive pressure and to throw speed pressure and it's it's a nightmare it's a nightmare five and six could be like everyone else about seven the main problem is that the major parts were not fully finished when they were delivered back in May the wings tail enthuselage all need more work they must be finished before the laborious process of testing the state-of-the-art systems can be achieved by October 2004 the sophisticated flight deck is nearing completion this process involves powering up the aircraft's electrical system for the first time we've got number two Sebastian switched the breaker back there okay yep okay good it's very exciting first of all I'm quite stressing it because uh because uh of the challenge that is represents in terms of safety because the tests we are making now uh performing now and all the tests of the real aircraft and we we have to ensure that the aircraft is good for Ellen ponds the size and sheer complexity of the task means every day she has a mountain to climb after assembly to verify that all the connection are correctly installed connected to the right to the right extremities and that we we can we can perform the function of the of the aircraft without any problem thank you by now there are three a380s under construction in the vast equipping Hall around half a billion pounds worth of aircraft under one enormous roof by 2008 when production is running at full speed a brand new plane will leave this Hall every week this is a big bucks business and chief commercial officer John Lee hee is determined that the project stays on schedule getting the airplane out on time is critically important there are significant penalties that we would have to pay to each customer if we delay his aircraft after a certain grace period of I don't want to say how long but a certain grace period involved in every contract the penalties for late delivery run to hundreds of thousands of pounds a week and that pressure runs down the chain of command all the way to the men and women building the machines some people could you say break down no Christian polite is the engineer in charge of the tail fin known as the vertical tail plane or vtp the fitting has not gone smoothly but finally it's time to install the last piece it's a camera that gives the pilot a bird's eye view from the very top of the fin some 75 feet up right now we are going up to the uh almost to the very top of the vertical tape plane in order to install the last component which remains on the vtp still left yeah you can easily see that this part is only screwed to the structure by I guess 20 screws around and it has to be connected to the Electric System via these two little connectors the signals are transferred via a fiber optical cable down to a monitor in the cockpit here at the Airbus Factory in starde Germany back in February 2004. Christian oversaw the final construction of the largest carbon fiber fin ever conceived the ambitious scale of the production process meant there were always going to be problems we started with a schedule which allowed us to assemble their first fin within a reasonable time but in fact we encountered problems which delayed the the time for the assembly and to worsen the situation the lead time was shortened so we ended up with a lead time that was nearly half of the original lead time we planned although the fin was delivered on time Christian's work was not finished the fin was delivered with so many jobs left to do that he had to move to France to continue the work he came here and thought we had it we have a good planning we have a good time schedule we have everything on hand and but it wasn't like that the moment we started working we had to to change each and every every point the planning was upside down and so we had to just to start to work so that's the way you can find a way through the jungle yeah now though as the screws go in on the camera the end is inside it's a good sound that means the screws in with every screw we're a little step towards the end yeah but then there's a problem [Music] the fiber optic cable is too short to reach the camera foreign the connector is here and the cable ends here and we have to have another one centimeter about one in about half an inch which is the cable to short I mean but these are foreign yeah these moments really piss me off I mean when you're almost done so close you can see the end you you almost stepped over the line and then someone blocks you hits you in the face saying hey you're not yet done how could you imagine despite the setbacks in other areas things are going to plan now they can begin mounting the engines one of the most impressive and expensive single parts of the whole aircraft together four of these giant Rolls-Royce Trent 900s cost nearly 36 million pounds that's the same as four tons of solid gold a quarter of the cost of the finished plane flight testing began back in May 2004 when the new engine was bolted onto an Airbus A340 a much smaller airliner it dwarfs the other engines [Music] weighing over six tons the Trent 900 can produce up to 35 tons of thrust at full power burning a gallon of fuel every four seconds these early tests proved the engine at altitude but there's a much much tougher test to come here in Hucknall Nottinghamshire another test engine will soon be a smoking ruin deliberately destroyed as part of a dramatic and crucial safety test it's an important milestone for the entire A380 project and as engineer Hillary Barton travels to the test she admits to some nerves honestly I've got a few butterflies at the moment but basically everybody's done the preparation and it's just now a matter of getting on and doing the test obviously before the the engine starts you're sitting there just kind of hoping it all go well but just really waiting for it to happen there every few years a fan blade will fail in a jet engine somewhere in the world a rare but violent event that must not put lives in danger at the root of the colored blade is an explosive charge with the engine at full power it will be detonated releasing the blade with astonishing Force whatever happens the blade must not be allowed to burst out of the engine where in real life it could do serious damage to the rest of the aircraft in a room 200 yards away watching via a video link a 25 Key Personnel each hoping the test goes as planned in the Split Second the blade is released the engine must successfully contain an enormous amount of energy it is a very this is a very violent test this thing is spinning around it's at full power so you've got the forces on on the blade are quite quite significant like having a locomotive hanging on on that on that blade so you're obviously having to contain the energy of that system so there's a lot of energy involved in the design and containment of the blade I mean the whole you know the whole engine will get a huge big shape as ever the size of the A380 increases the challenge the bigger the engine the bigger the blades and the greater the energy released if one were to fail spinning at 3 000 revolutions per minute the blades experience a force of more than seven thousand times their own weight so everything is done to make them as light and as strong as possible a top secret process molds the plates from Ultra strong ultra light titanium alloy to save further weight the blades are heated to 900 Degrees in a furnace until they're softened the gas is pumped into cavities inside the blade inflating it like a long thin balloon the result is a hollow part curved in three directions for aerodynamic efficiency supremely strong yet light enough for someone to pick up and move quite easily each one costs the same as a luxury car and a full set of 24 are about to be destroyed in the name of safety as the critical test for the Airbus a380s engine gets underway it's run for five minutes at low power so final checks can be made [Music] over in the viewing room Hillary Barton and her colleagues are anxiously waiting the main concern is that as the blade is blown free the casing around the fan absorbs the huge impact and prevents potentially lethal shrapnel from escaping high-speed film cameras are used to analyze the action and at last the throttles are opened and the engine brought to its full awesome power [Music] foreign is what it feels like to be inside a building 200 yards away from a 9 million pound blade off event blade off testing is normally top secret but for the first time Rolls-Royce have released this footage although the engine was totally destroyed the fan case did its job and no large lumps of metal were ejected foreign it's been a good day I feel very relieved obviously it's gone well we've had a good test and it's all credit to the guys and yes we've got we've got a successful test under a belt so I feel relieved and really pleased back in France the plane is about to leave the equipping Hall instead of the planned October afternoon it's a foggy gray December morning with the grand unveiling just five weeks away the next giant task is to paint the massive machine and yet another vast hanger working over the Christmas holidays 90 painters descend on the plane [Music] first they rub down over a hundred thousand square feet of Bodywork then after a superhuman effort of masking off the A380 is ready for a brand new paint job all in all more than half a ton of paint and primer are needed to protect the aluminum skin from the elements the final Livery is a closely guarded secret and won't be revealed until the big day [Music] oh until now the A380 has been a private project today it goes public as usual it's a massive undertaking inside part of the final assembly line seating for 5 000 guests has been installed in the equipping Hall TV reporters are hard at work feeding the story to the networks Richard Branson head of Virgin Atlantic has grabbed the headlines with news of double beds and casinos in his Planes for John Leahy and thousands of others it's a dream come true it took an awful long time to get here didn't it but now we're it's pretty exciting the heads of state and governments arrive and take their places for a spectacle featuring dry ice flying machines and computer graphics speeches are made but there's only one star of this show [Music] finally the biggest airliner of all time is there for all to sing today is the culmination of more than 10 years of effort by thousands of people from all over the world I do feel really really touched by this very moment yeah oh it's a good achievement huh I mean a good show and a good speeches and a nice aircraft and uh tomorrow back to work to make it Fly that's good it's good this is an exciting day but we can't relax you can't let up on the pressure the pressure for sales the pressure performance the pressure to get this airplane out and make it happen there's still a very long way to go thank you

Channel: Spark

Views: 258,966

Keywords: Spark, Science, Technology, Engineering, Learning, How To, education, documentary, factual, mind blown, construction, building, full documentary, space documentary, bbc documentary, Science documentary, airbus, a380, history, behind the scenes, documentaries

Id: Edrv6z6Rwsw

Length: 49min 1sec (2941 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 26 2023