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| An Airbus made of wood |
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| Armin Hubl (far left) and his team in a mock-up |
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| The mock-up as a shell |
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| In Armin Hubl's carpentry workshop |
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An Airbus made of wood?
A model is put to the test
The call comes from the loudspeakers: "Evacuate passengers, evacuate passengers". Then it all gets rather hectic in the aircraft cabin. Everyone knows exactly what they have to do. The thing is, though, it's only a drill but it looks incredibly realistic. This is all thanks to the replica of an Airbus A320 that is regularly used by cockpit and cabin crews to practise for emergencies. Mock-up is the word used for detailed replicas of aircraft. However, this mock-up did not come from the Airbus factory. It was made in a small town in Hessen, Germany called Florstadt in der Wetterau. This is where master carpenter Armin Hubl has his workshop and where, for over 30 years, he has built Lufthansa aircraft mock-ups.
Hubl and his team have just finished the model for the cabin of the Airbus A380. The first part section of the new aircraft will be 2.80 metres wide and 2.40 metres high. It took around 250 square metres of wooden board to make the structure, which was made up of over 200 individual parts. New seats and everything that will later be installed in the cabin of the real aircraft will be tested extensively in the mock-up.
Mr. Hubl's workshop has very little to do with the romantic image of a carpenter working with saws, planes and hammers. Today everything is high tech: a computer-controlled cutter trims the boards to size and then everything else functions more or less automatically. You just have to press a button to operate the machine, which then executes a certain program and traces the precise contours of an aircraft section. Hubl admits that it would be really exciting to look over the shoulders of Airbus designers and technicians as they build a real Airbus A380. When it comes down to it, their aircraft can really fly, whereas Armin Hubl's wooden model will probably remain on the ground forever.
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More info |
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