Amy Aviation is on a tour of the UK, visiting places well-known for their connection with UK aeronautics!
Today she’s in Broughton, a village in North Wales near to Hawarden Airport.
It is home to a massive factory with a very proud history… One of the first ever commercial airliners was made here!
It was called the De Havilland’s Comet. When it took to the air in 1952, it helped thousands of people experience air travel for the first time.
Broughton is still very much involved with plane production. In fact, it’s one of the most important aerospace production sites in the world, constructing one very important part of the plane in particular. Here’s a clue…
The wings! Broughton is responsible for assembling the wings for Airbus commercial planes, including those for the massive A380 super jumbo.
The very latest technology and materials are used to make the wings as light as possible, as the more efficient a plane’s design, the less fuel it needs which keeps costs down and helps prevent harm to the environment.
Once built at Broughton, the wings need to go to Toulouse in the South of France to be attached to the rest of the plane. To get there, they generally fly on the rather strange Beluga transport plane…
But not the wings for the A380 – they are just too large and so travel by barge along the River Dee to the docks at Mostyn.
Every year, Broughton makes over 1,000 wings – that’s a lot of planes. Time for me to wing my way out of here!
You can watch the animated series of Amy’s Aviation on YouTube or download the audio series on your phone or tablet so you can listen whenever you like – at home or in the car!
MOBILE: Amy's Aviation: Kids Guide to Airplanes & Airports
The podcast that discovers how airplanes fly and what goes on behind-the-scenes at airports
