AeroSoc trip to Airbus in Filton 6th Feb 2008.
Posted Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 17:02pm / No comments
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The day started with another hot cup of coffee and some tired-looking baggy eyes. Devang was actually early for the first time and with no Materials slackers to dilute the gene pool everyone was on time and at 07:40 the race began: Paul and Owen, head to head on their way to Bristol. The journey was sunny, bright and southern - in stark contrast to the journey to Derby on the previous AeroSoc trip which was cold, dark and northern.
On arrival at Airbus in Filton, students were immediately impressed to find an ex-British Airways Concorde sitting aside the car park. First official stop was a series of careers-based presentations which gave us a chance to ask some questions and be blanketed by a barrage of ‘company A and company B' propaganda.
After lunch, the group split up to take in a tour of various parts of the site. We were shown around the A400M wing assembly-line where it was possible to see the various stages, tooling and expertise involved in the step-by-step assembly of a full-scale, part-composite wing set.
Next stop, the A380 landing gear test rig. One group actually saw the system in action whilst the other group still gained an interesting insight into the detailed operation of aircraft landing gear and the large scale of forces and engineering involved.
Last but not least, the composite research and development centre, where carbon fibre and advanced composites are being developed for future aircraft applications. Some people were even lucky enough to be shown the additive layer manufacturing machine, a tool which can in effect print in 3-D with both metals and plastics and may just be the future of all manufacturing.
Then we came home…
Safe!
