Toulouse photo gallery - Aeroscopia Museum Part 1

Airbus employs over 56,000 in France and Toulouse plays a pivotal role in the aerospace industry. Manufacturing is scattered across the continent, with Toulouse being the headquarters and assembly location. The fuselage is manufactured in Hamburg, the wings in St. Nazaire or Broughton, and components in Bremen.

Being a huge aerospace town, Toulouse has its own museum set amidst the Airbus campus with a number of famous and historical aircraft on display. Aeroscopia has both interior and outdoor display areas, and I combined it with an Airbus factory tour, which requires a separate advanced booking with a separate fee.

The Super Guppy is a huge cargo transporter and was the predecessor of the Beluga. Originally intended for NASA to transport rocket parts from production sites to the launch pad, Airbus became interested when components of its A300 could not be transported by land.

To load and unload the cargo, the nose opens sideways after disconnecting the flight controls, cables, wiring, and more.

The aircraft on display is the 2nd one built, with its first flight in 1970. It retired in 1996 after over 14,000 flight hours.

The A300B was the world's first twin-engined widebody commercial aircraft. It first flew on a test flight in October 1972 for a 85 minute journey at a maximum altitude of 14,000 feet. While the original intention was to build an aircraft for 270-300 passengers, hence the A300 name, the final product had reduced seating to about 225 at the request of Air France and Lufthansa, and given the label A300B.

There are 2 Concordes on display in the museum, with one inside and the other outside. The inside aircraft's interiors could be freely visited.

The Concorde was a co-operative project between Britain and France to produce a supersonic aircraft. It made its first flight in 1969 and entered commercial service 7 years later. Both Air France and British Airways ended their Concorde operations in 2003 following a crash in Paris in 2000.

Besides these famous airplanes, there are plenty of others in the interior exhibition area.

However, this isn't the end of your visit. Be sure to head outside to see the 2 outdoor exhibition areas.