A Super Jumbo Wing How to Build...

Of course it's a gamble.

Every time you launch a new commercial aerospace programme,

you're betting the farm that it's going to be successful.

This isn't just a beautiful wing.

Inside this wing are the fuel tanks and a very complex fuel system.

You're working on something so different compared to anyone else.

Some of my friends are working down ASDA, and I get to work on the A380.

As this wing unfolds, you'll see how big it is.

You'll see what a massive task it is to take it out.

You're standing there and you've got 29 tonne in the air.

There are so many different parts,

and you've got to know exactly, like the ailerons and the AGS.

If you don't know what they mean, you're lost with what to order.

This year, we're building four wings like this per month.

Next year, we'll ramp up to six per month.

It's a tough job for the whole team, but we'll get there.

Every single component has to be right.

We joke that when the paperwork is heavier than the aeroplane,

you're about close to getting it right.

Nestled among farmland in North Wales,

this is the Airbus factory in Broughton.

It's the biggest manufacturing site now in the UK, over 6,000 employees.

We're enormous, we actually did a sponsored run around the site and

I think it was something like

five and a half miles to run around the site.

And the people that help build the world's biggest passenger jet

are arriving for the morning shift.

Factory boss Paul McKinlay starts each day walking the factory floor,

keen to see for himself that things are running smoothly,

and no detail goes unnoticed.

It's so much more expensive to dispose of contaminated waste.

So we need to make sure that we segregate in the right way.

That's one of the things I do during process confirmation -

go and have a look in the bins.

When the A380 factory was opened in 2003,

it was the largest to be built in Britain for 20 years.

But for the people who work here, it's more than just a workplace.

The community feel is important, lots of guys live locally to the factory.

People are excited by aircraft and love working with aircraft.

I think that's what makes a lot of us stay.

The Airbus A380 Superjumbo was launched in 2007,

and today there are 53 already working the skies.

Having spent an estimated £10 billion developing this plane,

the company needs to make as many sales as they can.

But building planes on this scale is a monumental task.

Aviation history is littered with failed attempts to go this big.

Like any big passenger jet, the A380 is first

manufactured in smaller sections, with the fuselage,

nose section and tail fin made in different sites across Europe.

However, the greatest technical innovation on this plane

are its enormous wings, and they're made right here in the UK.

Broughton has a 70-year history of making wings,

so Airbus decided to manufacture its A380 wings here too.

Demand for the Superjumbo is high, with well over 200 now on order.

And so the major task that Paul and his team of engineers face is

how to build all those wings on time and on budget.

The production flow is critical. On A380, we're ramping up.

This year, we're building four wings like this per month.

Next year, we'll ramp up to six per month.

Our aim is to try and make six wings a month with the same

number of operators that today make four wings a month.

With an increased order book, it's critical that the workforce

hit delivery times. If they succeed, they'll secure

thousands of highly-skilled British jobs for years to come.

But, any delays in production could have serious consequences.

It's a tough job for the whole team in the factory, but we'll get there.

We've got a great team.

The attitude of all of our people is to try and succeed on challenges,

so I'm convinced we'll get there.

Each set of wings begin life as a collection of raw materials

and arrive from all over the world,

with some big enough to stop traffic.

This cargo of 33 metre-long blocks of aluminium is

bound for the panel-forming area of the factory, where

manufacturing manager Mark Farrell is arriving for his shift.

Everything about the wings is on a monumental scale,

and the aluminium plates are loaded

onto Europe's largest milling machine.

Right, this is the start of the journey.

We're starting to mill it now, and this is where it starts

its long road, ends up on an aircraft.

When we see it flying over, you get an appreciation

that that started here at Broughton.

Over a period of 72 hours, the panel,

with all its intricate features, is carefully sculpted out of the metal.

By the time they're finished,

there's more aluminium in waste than the panel itself.

But it's all recycled.

The next stage for the perfectly-carved panel is to shape it

to the precise aerodynamic contours demanded by the designers.

So, it's sucked onto a specially-moulded bed.

The panel's now been moved onto the transfer, it's now getting

the actual shuttle moving across to line it up now to go into the oven.

It is the biggest oven in the country.

When the oven was actually brought in to Broughton,

we had to have British Telecom working with us,

because all the telegraph lines had to be removed

while it travelled through,

and then, when they finished, the lines had to go back up.

Heating the panel to 160 degrees in this massive oven

locks the aerodynamic curve in place.

The A380's wings can lift 560 tonnes of Superjumbo to

an altitude of 12,000 metres, and fly the world's longest routes.

It's an amazing feat of engineering.

The reason it's possible lies in the shape of an aircraft's wings.

Wings are curved on top and flatter on the bottom.

This shape makes air flow over the top faster than underneath.

This means the air pressure is lower on top than below,

causing the wing and the plane to lift up.

The A380's wings are also more fuel efficient per passenger

than an average family car, making them the greenest in the skies.

This is the LCM treatment facility in Broughton.

This is the biggest surface treatment plant in Europe.

Once they've been heat treated,

the enormous panels go through 12 treatment baths

to clean and protect them.

Europe's biggest surface treatment plant is

a fully automated facility, operating 24/7.

This is critical to the process, the one thing you don't want is

contamination going into the fuel systems.

It's an old saying, but there's no hard shoulder at 35,000 feet.

Of the 6,000 employees at Broughton, 300 are apprentices,

and one of them, Hollie McCreadie,

is arriving for day one of a new wing build.

Me and the girls went on holiday last year, and people were asking,

"Where do you work,?" and I told them I work at Airbus

as a Higher Engineering Apprentice, and I get the, "No, you don't."

More and more girls are getting involved in it, it's just

a lot of people don't believe you work here when you say you do.

And if they do, it's, "Oh, are you a secretary, then?" And I'm not!

How long does it take to come down then, usually?

It takes four and a half, five minutes for it to come down.

It's not that quick.

Hollie is learning the ropes with the Heavy Gang,

the team that work the 12 massive cranes that span the whole factory.

Today, a delivery of major components has just arrived,

and needs unloading.

So, as we're coming down slow now, I'm sort of keeping an eye on

the silver beam underneath in relation to where it's going to sit.

I'm quite lucky really, because they're all lovely fellers.

It's a nice environment to work in, strangely.

You wouldn't think so, but it is.

The job of ensuring that components from all over the world are all

delivered on time for the build falls to the people in logistics,

and it's what Hollie has decided she wants to make her specialty.

Logistics is pretty much what makes everything run in Airbus.

On each part that you see, all the nuts and bolts,

they're all come through logistics,

as well as all the large parts from all different suppliers.

Hundreds of suppliers work for Airbus all round the world,

so it pretty much keeps everything happening.

Without it, nothing would get built.

I wanted to be a hairdresser.

Did you?

Yeah, I did.

There's nothing wrong with that.

There's so many different parts.

It's hard getting to grips,

and you've got to know exactly, like the ailerons and AGS, because if you don't know

what they're talking about, like butt straps and things like that,

you're lost with what to order. You really need it.

The A380 has around four million individual components,

with the wings themselves containing nearly half a million alone.

That's not surprising, given they're brimming with technical systems.

They carry most of the aircraft's fuel,

including a complex system of tanks and pumps.

There's 37 kilometres of wiring, piping and ducting

that drive all the flight control surfaces.

And the wings have to carry four massive jet engines,

which weigh over six tonnes each.

And finally, there's landing gear.

Capable of withstanding an impact weight of 560 tonnes,

and landing at speeds greater than a Formula One racing car.

The wing is now ready to be assembled, like a giant Meccano kit,

from the rows of parts that are ready and waiting.

To do this, each wing needs to go into a massive construction frame,

known as a jig, and these are the biggest

the aviation industry have ever used.

This is the main assembly jig, the heartbeat of the factory,

where the wing starts coming together.

The jig is now being prepared to start its production cycle,

so, as you can see, the guys are just checking all the location fixtures,

all the locations pins, oiling

and greasing ready for the next set of components.

The Heavy Gang get to work.

First in are the rear spars,

three long sections that form the spine of the wing.

These spars are fixed firmly in place to the 45 locating pins

and will bear the whole weight of the wing,

that'll rise up lengthways in the jig.

Over the next five days, the team load all the 49 ribs that

run across the wing.

The ribs are made from aluminium and carbon-fibre composites,

materials both known for their strength and lightness.

Finally, the frame of the wing is fully assembled,

and the skeleton is ready to be covered with the huge

aluminium panels that form its skin.

Giant automated machines drill holes in the panels.

A total of a quarter of a million per wing set.

And the panels are lifted into position.

After 25 days, the main body of the wing is complete,

and it's ready to come out of the jig.

But it weighs nearly 30 tonnes,

and is four storeys high, just lying on its side.

This is definitely a job for the Heavy Gang.

The Heavy Gang is the lifting team.

We do all the heavy work.

It's not Heavy Gang cos we're all big fat and old -

it's Heavy Gang cos we lift heavy things!

Only the most skilled and experienced crane operators

can handle a job like this, and Al Burley is the Gang leader.

Al has the unenviable task of getting the wing out through

a gap with only a metre to spare either side.

We're going to take the wing out.

Put it on the turnover jig and lay it down. Safely, we hope.

I must have been involved in about 70 to 80 wings.

Down a bit, please, Jerry.

Eight years ago, Al lifted the very first A380 wing out of its jig,

but this one will be his last.

I'm retiring tomorrow.

So, hopefully... The cheque isn't in the bank yet.

I want it to be in the bank before anything goes wrong!

That'll do, John.

Like a lot of people in Airbus,

Al has worked at the company for many years.

13 years, four months, two hours and 15 seconds.

It's been a nice place to be, this side.

See that sleeve hand, just ease that sleeve out.

It's time to begin preparations for the big lift.

OK, coming down.

Despite its size, the wing is a very delicate object.

-I'll the weight on that after.

-The strongest points on the wing are

where the two engines will be mounted.

These titanium brackets will be sustaining the entire weight

of the wing during the lift, but must remain perfectly intact after.

As the jig is pulled back from the wing, the narrow gap it will

have to pass through on its way out becomes obvious.

Do you want someone on the top?

I'm on it.

The smallest dent would mean a serious delay, and with

the rate of production increasing, there really is no time to spare.

The Heavy Gang work as an orchestrated team to release

the wing from its moorings.

Removing all the pins from the rear spar flags.

If they're left in when we try to lift it,

it'll either rip that part off the wing

or it'll rip the jig bit out.

So, it is important to get them all out.

Massive, isn't it?

You don't really appreciate how big it is until you stand here.

Cos I'm here, and then I've got the rest of the wing, haven't I?

It's unbelievable.

And it's even more daunting when we take it to the ceiling.

Cos you're actually standing there and you've got 29 tonne in the air.

As this wing unfolds, you'll see how big it is.

You'll see what a massive task it is to take it out.

A final check that all the pins are out,

and it's time to release the master pins, leaving

nearly 30 tonnes of wing hanging from the crane at just two points.

Right, Al, the last one out now.

Right, the wing's free, I'll get the radio,

and on my command, we'll get it out.

We're ready.

Right, take it up on the one.

12, 8 on the inboard.

6, 9 on the outboard.

Hang on, hold it there.

Jimmy, stop. Jim, stop.

That's got to come over.

Chris, loosen yours off, tighten yours up a touch, Jim.

'Right, Al take it up again on both, please.'

19, 8, 675.

Hold it there. Right, Al, we're ready for you to come west.

Take that chain off, mate, please. Cheers, Jim.

Going up.

Finally, the largest wing in commercial airliner history

takes its first flight.

Only now can the sheer scale of the A380 Superjumbo

be truly appreciated.

One of its tail planes alone is larger than the wing of an A320,

the favourite carrier of budget airlines.

And the wings themselves are a whole 50% bigger

than those on a jumbo jet.

In fact, this Superjumbo would be a tight fit in Wembley Stadium.

The wings are over ten metres wider than a football pitch.

But, covering an area of over 400 square metres,

this enormous wing will, when it's finished, fly more efficiently

and more quietly than any of its current commercial rivals.

Crane's broke down.

John, can you get us box one, please?

Lock to latch it over?

That's what I've got to do, got to take it back that way.

Otherwise I won't get it on.

See, they're turning on.

Try one at a time.

That one, doesn't look....

There we go, lads, we're in business.

A momentary loss of signal with the crane is re-established,

and they can finish the job off.

After 30 years of operating heavy machinery,

Al's ready to land his final wing.

OK, that's the end, we're going home now.

These lads here they're more than capable of looking after the job.

We need a couple more, cos we're going to get busier and busier.

But as long as we can get them out as good as this was,

we won't have a problem, will we?

OK, is that it? I've got to go.

Thank you.

With the wing now out of the jig, it's time to check whether this hand-built creation

is actually the right shape.

Right. I'll shoot the top point. Did you get that first point there?

OK, good to go.

Alex Jones has recently become a metrologist,

an expert in precise measurement.

It's his job to make sure

the contours of the wing are exactly right.

Precision is key in this job, it's got to be right first time.

The laser is shot into the three mirrors

on this corner cube reflector,

and then bounced back to give us measurements all over the wing,

so that we can make sure it's aerodynamic in flight.

The shape of the wing has been painstakingly designed to

have particular aerodynamic properties.

They make it as efficient as possible.

Cos each individual one is handmade, not made by robots,

you get some slight variations that need to be sorted out or have

the final finishing touches done to them.

We've got set tolerances on each individual point,

which can be down to hundredths or thousandths of millimetres.

-OK, mate, yeah.

-Next one.

If anything is out of place,

it could mean a costly delay to production while it's put right.

What are the figures like, Dave?

Yeah, just looking at the report, mate. They're all good.

The team know they can't make a single mistake,

and are immensely proud of the work they do.

You're working on something so different compared to anyone else.

Some of my friends, you know,

working down ASDA, I get to work on the A380.

And there are other benefits to working at Broughton.

A couple of times a week, Alex and his dad Gary head for the gym,

built with the rest of the factory in the 1930s.

It's like a release from, obviously, the pressures of working here.

Everything has got to be right.

And then you can come here and let off a bit of steam.

It's all good.

Fortunately for Alex, he's always been keen on planes.

Me Dad always used to bring home

little models from Airbus that he'd get,

and I knew I'd be working here one day.

So here I am.

I think Airbus at Broughton has had a history of families

working at Broughton, fathers, sons, daughters, mothers.

I've got a brother working here.

I left school in mid-'70s, joined as an apprentice and served the four-year apprenticeship,

and I've worked here ever since.

It's a lot of years' service, 35.

It's a long way off for me, personally, at the moment.

But hopefully, I do enjoy working here,

so one day I might be able to say I've worked here for 35 years.

Broughton has a long aviation history.

During the war, Wellington bombers were made here,

and at one point rolled off the production line

at a rate of one a day.

But another of Airbus's sites in Filton, near Bristol,

has even longer aviation heritage.

They've been building planes for over 100 years there,

but are probably most famous for developing Concorde,

which was designed and tested in its unique laboratories.

And it's still the place where Airbus designs

and tests their wings, sometimes to destruction.

-211.

-Yes, look at the bend on that.

You're looking for the last few percent of improvement

on every aspect of the design.

We have to look at every nut, bolt, washer, rivet,

everything is brought down to

the minimum weight that maintains the safety and integrity.

It takes the world's best engineers over a long period of time to

get to this level of performance and efficiency.

Not many people realise that the UK has the second-largest

aerospace industry in the world, beaten only by the United States,

providing UK jobs for a quarter of a million people.

It's a fiercely-competitive industry,

and the battle for supremacy of the 21st-century skies is now

all about efficiency.

It's a race to reduce the weight of aircraft,

making them cheaper on fuel and cleaner on the environment.

And although in production with the A380, the team are always

looking for improvements.

In a unique facility on the Filton site, engineers are about to run

a series of tests on a new, lighter landing-gear design.

Stuart Hazelwood is the man in charge.

The tanks and manifolds are exactly as they would be on the aircraft.

Around the whole rig, all the pipe lengths

and all the wire lengths are exactly the same

as you would have on the aircraft's landing gear.

When modifications are brought in, we are truly replicating

what we'd see on the aircraft.

The landing gear system is partly housed in the wing,

and, just like the real thing, the test rig is able to raise

and lower the 22 massive wheels of the A380.

There's a lot of pride that goes on here.

When you see the aircraft flying or hear good news about the aircraft,

you think, "Oh, yeah, I've got something to do with that,"

which is quite nice, actually.

Even though the plane is now in service,

testing for safety is a continuous process.

Every tiny change to the design, no matter how small the component,

means the whole system has to be thoroughly tested again.

And it's going to be a busy day

for chief landing gear designer Nigel Owen.

The A380 has 16 braked wheels, four on the body landing gears

and four on the wing landing gears.

And we're currently developing a new brake,

a reduced weight of brake and wheel.

Overall, we'll save about the weight of a passenger,

and this is the new brake which we intend to fit.

Shaving the weight of one passenger from several hundred tonnes

may not sound a lot, but multiply that over 20,000 flights

and you're looking at big fuel savings.

Today, they're testing for the worst-case scenario.

They want to ensure that, even if the hydraulic system that powers

the landing gear failed, it would still be deployed.

It's called the emergency free fall test.

The landing gear is designed in such a way that they can push open

the doors and drop into position under their own weight alone.

It's a situation most pilots would never encounter,

but now the landing gear is lighter with their new brakes,

Stuart and Nigel need to ensure that the procedure still works.

We are here to find out

if there would be any problems in certain scenarios.

You want it to happen here rather than on an aircraft.

You put lives at risk if that happens on an aircraft,

so that's why we're here.

Months of design work will stand or fall on the result of this test.

I wouldn't say it's fun.

It can be nerve racking, cos you don't want things going wrong.

There's a lot that can go wrong as soon as you get

big pieces of metal and rubber coming down.

After one final check,

they're ready to run the emergency landing simulation.

There's always a slight tinge of apprehension

when you're doing something for the first time.

It's a major step on the development activities,

successful completion of the test.

So let's get on with it, I think,

and demonstrate it all works as it should.

-OK, ready to go.

-OK, let's do it.

Enable the pump system now.

Should be 350 bars on green system,

that's two pumps on the yellow system. 350 bar of yellow pressure.

-Are you ready on the logger?

-Ready.

OK, happy? Ready for the free fall now.

And starting emergency extension.

Cut out valve selected. Vent valves selected.

There's the doors.

Doors have opened.

Gears are still uplocked.

And nose.

Body.

OK.

Doors shut, that's complete.

All down and locked.

-All down, doors shut, no faults.

-Great.

That's a successful emergency extension.

It's great when it goes well.

You put a lot of effort into it and when it happens seamlessly,

and when it goes like that, everyone is pleased.

And you go home and look for the next problem to solve.

Although the wings are made in the UK, Airbus has

test facilities all over Europe.

Chief engineer John Roberts is responsible for

the ongoing development of the wing and is on his way to

the German city of Dresden

to visit one of his most important test sites.

I've got probably the best job in the factory,

it's a great job looking after this aeroplane.

And they pay me for it, as well, which is good.

The Dresden rig is a test structure so large it took two years to build.

You always get a buzz and an excitement seeing the sheer scale

of this test facility that we do here.

If you don't get an excitement out of things like this,

you're in the wrong business.

Here we are, welcome to IABG in Dresden.

What John's engineers are after is proof that the Superjumbo

and its wings are strong enough to last a lifetime of flight.

To find out, they've spent well over £100 million

on the largest test rig of its kind ever built.

Achtung...

The rig is essentially a giant torture machine,

to expose any weaknesses in the design of the plane's structure

that might develop, by simulating the kind of stresses

a real plane would experience in flight, over and over again.

The most interesting part of this test is the bit which takes

all the punishment.

The aircraft, when it's flying, all its loading is being taken

up on the wing, which you can see up there.

So all the punishment is being driven into the wing structure,

and this is a demonstration of what it looks like

while it's actually in flight.

A computer system drives a network of 180 hydraulic rams

that bend and distort the wings.

It bends, doesn't it?

You can never fail to be impressed on seeing something like that.

Computer modelling of real journeys means that, in this simulation,

flight times can be reduced to only the bits of the journey where

the plane is particularly stressed, like turbulence and landing.

This would be a window which an ordinary passenger might be

looking out along the wing, and in the test here

the end of the wing is moving up by over four metres during normal flight cycles,

and down, when it's on the ground, by nearly two metres.

People always look out along the wing and see it bouncing up and down

in turbulence and thinking is this something I should worry about?

Well, we test it with the assumption it happens all the time and, no, you don't need to worry.

And precise engineering ensures the wings bend in exactly the right way.

The ability of the wing to take huge punishment is down to

the design of its internal structure.

It needs to be light but also very strong.

The ribs and spars give strength, but also just the right amount

of flexibility to cope with the enormous loads on them.

This fatigue test is the pinnacle of a whole testing programme

John is responsible for, to prove the plane is safe to fly.

In terms of proving the aircraft is safe, you have to put together

a portfolio that shows everything from the individual little valve

that sits within the wings, through to the complete structure test.

We always joke that when the paperwork is heavier than the aeroplane

you're about close to getting it right.

After five long years of continuous punishment,

24 hours of the day, an amazing milestone has now been reached.

An aircraft like this would do around 25 years of normal operation.

We've demonstrated here the equivalent of 65 years of operation.

And that basically confirms that the analysis that was done

by all those clever engineers sweating over computers for years on end

have been proved to be right.

It's quite an achievement,

but John's decided that even though the plane could carry on going,

it's time for the test to finally come to an end.

We'll basically cut out the bits that we want to keep

for reference and the rest of it will be recycled as aluminium.

So it will be appear in a Coca Cola can near you

at some stage in the future.

Back in Broughton, it's shift change at the factory

and Janet Hardy is clocking on for the afternoon.

Fuel for later.

The wing is almost ready to be kitted out with all its flight systems.

But before that can start, Janet has an important safety test to perform.

As well as flying and steering the plane,

the wings are also the enormous fuel tanks of the A380.

The wing's made up of little sections,

and each one is called a rib.

And certain sections are sealed,

and those are actually the fuel tanks.

In between each fuel bay we have sealed ribs,

and these are the ribs that we actually test to make sure

that they are water tight or fuel tight, in this case.

The test begins by sealing up the tank that's going to be tested,

so it can then be filled with high pressure air.

Can you pass me my overshoes, please?

The only failsafe way to spot a leak is to get up as close as possible.

I have to be a contortionist at times.

It's not the easiest of places to get to.

You have to be double jointed!

Safely nestled in the next door tank,

Janet applies a solution to the seal around the rib.

I'm snooping the rib to see if I can detect any leaks.

If there's any air trying to escape, it'll blow bubbles,

like a bicycle with a puncture.

It's looking pretty good so far, to be fair.

As safety is the top priority, it's a necessary task,

but Janet's job is not for the fainthearted.

When you first join Airbus, you are tested to see

if you've got any problems with confined spaces,

so in the training school

you actually go up head and shoulders inside a wing tank

and they ask you to read some numbers off a card, and obviously if you've

got your eyes shut and you're terrified, you can't read the numbers!

I've got a bungalow, so maybe I'm more terrified of heights!

SHE LAUGHS

But anyway. OK, job done. Time to have a cool down.

Very warm and very sweaty.

I don't know why I did my hair this morning, I don't think there was much point!

Janet finishes off by testing the outside of the wing for leaks.

This time the tank is filled with helium.

Any that escapes she'll detect with a sensor.

Once all the fuel tanks have been tested,

the wing and its matching partner can finally be equipped with all the systems they need to fly.

The wiring, piping and ducting for the hydraulics

that connect all the controls, and the fuel system are installed

by 200 workers over 22 days.

This is a vast undertaking, but the company has a full order book

and so they'll need to constantly look for ways to make the process more efficient.

Today, their fuel systems specialist, Lorraine McIlree,

is visiting the factory.

She's on a mission to see if they can build the wings any quicker.

There's a lot of equipment in the wing, a lot of fuel equipment in the tanks.

We've got 21 pumps,

we've got 46 valves that are installed,

and hundreds of pieces of sensing equipment

all installed in the wing here, and we want to be able to see

what improvements we can make to make that job easier along the way.

The people here are doing this job every day

and they are key to being able to give us

pointers or suggestions on potential improvements.

So it's really useful to talk to them.

Today, she's looking at how the engine feed pumps are installed.

Nightmare. They're like this all the time.

It needs to be able to go in a bit easier, it's always like this.

OK, that's quite easy to take on board, that's really useful to know.

Making one pump easier and quicker to fit may seem fairly minor,

but it's just the kind of thing that Lorraine wants to improve on

to get the wings flowing out of the factory even faster.

But for her, the wing is more than just the sum of its parts.

I absolutely love the profile of that wing,

and whenever I see a 380, one of the views

I most enjoy is the back of a 380 and that sweeping wing shape.

Absolutely stunning, really lovely, and I feel really proud when you see that as well.

The sheer scale of the Superjumbo

called for a new type of fuel system.

Fully loaded, there's up to 118 tonnes of fuel in each wing.

With a conventional fuel system,

that weight would put huge stress on them.

So the designers created a dynamic system that could constantly

distribute fuel around 11 separate tanks,

to ensure the weight was where it was needed.

On the ground, fuel is loaded towards the centre

of the craft to prevent the wings from bending down too much.

But during flight, fuel has to be pumped out to the tips,

to stop them being forced up.

Tanks are also located in the tail, and fuel is pumped

forward during flight to maintain the perfect centre of gravity.

This weight reducing fuel system has helped the A380 become

the most fuel efficient airliner in the skies.

But going so large could mean the plane taking too long

to prepare for flight, losing money for the airlines.

If you stand next to it you can actually, you know,

put that into perspective as to quite how big that tank

of fuel actually is, that's a lot of fuel that can fit into that wing.

Fortunately, the fuel system has another trick up its sleeve.

If you were to take your 380 to your local petrol station to try

and fill it up with fuel, it could take up to six days to fill up.

On 380, we have a complex refuel system which will enable us

to potentially fill the aircraft, ready for dispatch, in 45 minutes.

Airlines are always keen to reduce the amount

they spend on expensive fuel,

making fuel efficiency a constant subject of competition

in the aircraft industry.

So, although the A380 wing is the most fuel efficient there is,

the company has been redesigning it to make it even lighter.

It's been Chris Bennion's job for the last two years to implement

all those design changes into the production line.

It might seem quite small to maybe reduce this,

this web thickness by a mil, but when you do so across

the length of an aircraft, you know, then things soon add up

and they soon start to impact on the overall weight of the wing.

We changed a lot of parts, and when that came together,

then you start talking about substantial, hundreds upon hundreds of kilograms saving.

If they've got their sums right, all of this should add up

to about 350kg per wing.

Enough to save several million pounds

when calculated in fuel savings over the lifetime of the aircraft.

And there's only one way to find out if all the hard work has paid off.

It's two in the morning.

But this factory never sleeps.

A team has been assembled to perform a special task.

The first wing with all the weight reduction modifications

is about to come off the production line.

It's time to prove whether it's as light as it should be.

Stuart Sutton is a man with a very large set of weighing scales.

This is a 20 tonne weighing cell.

Use four of these on this weigh.

Just attaching it into the lifting system.

It's time to get started and the lifting beams are married up

to the wing by four small sockets that will bear several tonnes each.

OK there now.

6.3, Joe.

Take it up on both to start with and we'll keep an eye on the plum lines.

Hold it there, up on the outboard.

Down on the inboard.

Down a touch.

That's fine.

We'll take the figures on that.

The predictions and calculations done by computers are now about to be put to the test.

Bit of movement.

Any movement in the crane system,

so we've got a bit of a bounce to settle now.

First impression, that's good.

It is the 350kgs lighter that we were expecting.

I think they'll be happy with the results once they get them.

Two years of hard work by hundreds of people has finally been vindicated.

The wing is lighter and greener

whilst safely maintaining its strength.

It's gone smoothly, good team effort.

Factory boss Paul McKinley is in a good mood.

Another wing is about to roll off the production line,

but also, the company's football team, Airbus UK, is on the verge

of breaking through to the semi-finals of the Welsh Premier League.

WHISTLE

There's been a football club on the site since 1946.

I do wear two hats, proper job is head of the plant here at Broughton.

My fun hat is being chairman of the football club

and you can see from the crowd we've got here tonight, there's probably

400 here from the local community.

The football club and the company plays a big, big part in this community.

You know, you come here on Friday night after a tough week in work.

It's a good way to relieve some stress as well from the work place.

Go on, Shed, you're in!

Go on, Shed!

Yeah!

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

WHISTLE

Penalty, it's a penalty to the other team.

What a save that was!

Eh, Reg, you couldn't have done that!

You'd have held it!

I like winning in everything I do.

We always say in football there's no such thing as a friendly, you play to win.

And I do everything that I do, you give your best.

You want to win and be competitive.

People have different strengths in the workplace,

and part of having a team is bringing the different strengths

and competencies of that team together.

Go on, Shed, you can get in, you've got the pace.

Keep hold of the ball.

Oh, no!

FINAL WHISTLE

Point's OK.

Could have been none, and we needed a point tonight.

So, you take it and you move on.

Morning, and a set of wings are ready to leave the factory.

Each wing is shrink-wrapped to protect it from the elements

on its 28-day journey to Toulouse in France,

where it will be joined up to the rest of the plane.

The first leg is by river, but the barge is a mile away,

so first it'll have to negotiate a country lane.

Not easy for something 39 metres long, so it's one wing at a time.

Take this wing out now.

Our main thoughts are to make sure we actually don't hit anything,

because that would be embarrassing.

The wing inches along.

And an hour later departs for the coast on the River Dee.

Both wings are then loaded onto a specially built ferry,

ready for their journey to France.

At the same time, fuselage sections are starting their journey

from Germany.

And in Spain, the tail section is loaded on to a Beluga,

Airbus's specially built transport aircraft.

Two weeks later, the wings dock in France.

They're about to embark on the trickiest part of their journey.

They've been joined by all the other major sections of the plane.

And the convoy heads off on a 240km journey through rural France.

It's the middle of the night, and the whole convoy needs to

drive through the medieval village of Levignac.

The street is so narrow that Airbus had to redesign the balconies

to make room for the wings.

It's dawn, and the convoy arrives at the final assembly line in Toulouse.

Paul McKenzie, Broughton's overseas manager,

is on his way to greet the wings.

When I was growing up, the one thing I always loved, we used to go

every Sunday to Liverpool Airport to watch the aircraft.

I always wanted to work in the aircraft industry.

It's the day of the marry up,

when all the parts of the plane that have been

worked on for months in different countries finally come together.

I think this without doubt, in terms of the A380,

is the most critical point.

Everything has to be absolutely right, everything has to be

absolutely spot on.

BEEPING

It's a fantastic feat of co-ordination

as the whole operation will take under an hour.

It's rather like a ballet of sorts, you have five teams choreographed

so everybody knows exactly what everybody else is doing.

All the major components are simultaneously being

moved into position.

And ultimately everything is moved into the jig,

and then we begin with the assembly of yet another A380.

With the marry up under way,

everything is coming together at once in a clockwork manoeuvre.

It's an incredible sight to see,

never fails to amaze.

It's a privilege to have been involved in the project

and I think it goes without saying that all the many thousands of people that have contributed to this,

I think it's credit to all those guys for the efforts they put into it, the determination,

the commitment put in to get the product to this stage.

The moment is approaching

when the wings will finally become part of an aircraft.

You can see the centre fuselage ahead of us and that area,

just behind the jack,

is the actual area that the wing will be married up to.

It looks like the guys are ready to start moving

the wings into the fuselage, so I think we'd better move on.

The wings are finally joined to the plane with hair-width precision.

And secured in place with 4,000 bolts.

Over the next 14 days, the sections are joined together,

and other parts, like the landing gear, are attached.

Next, four enormous engines are attached

that can produce 300,000 pounds of thrust.

It's put through Europe's largest paint shop,

where they apply half a tonne of paint.

And finally, the work is done,

and the Superjumbo is ready to leave the factory.

It's always a proud moment to see one leave.

Every one of the team is devoted to this aircraft

and making sure that it is the best aircraft, best quality,

quality that the customers deserve.

It's now a complete aircraft, and ready for its maiden flight.

The latest addition to a fleet that the company hopes

will grow and grow over the next 25 years.

But back in Broughton, it's just another working day.

Morning, Joan, are you all right?

Yeah, fine, you?

The number of wings coming off the line is now up by 50%,

and these new orders will help secure jobs for the company.

We're changing the face of commercial aerospace industry.

Passengers want to fly on A380.

And when you see it in production,

when you see the complete aircraft, I think you understand why.

It's absolutely fantastic. Yeah, the A380's an icon.

It's still only four years since its launch,

but it seems that Airbus's big gamble might just have paid off.

In the next programme, we go to iconic British company McLaren

and discover how to build a supercar.

From sketch to structure, see how designs come to life by visiting:

Follow the links to the Open University.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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