Toulouse photo gallery - Aeroscopia Museum Part 2

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.

After visiting the interior exhibits, I headed outside to the first of two tarmac areas where a number of planes are on display. The star of the show is the A380, which is no longer in production although there will be plenty of these planes still flying in the skies for many years to come.

You can even board the plane in jet bridge fashion just like you are about to fly. Inside are a number of exhibits and a cabin mock-up.

The other 2 large planes on display are an A320 and an A340, but you can only admire them outside.

The A340 is one of my favourite planes to fly, although they're hard to find amongst the conventional carriers these days. It is a very long plane, but with a 2-4-2 configuration, it is fairly easy to escape to the lavatory from a window seat. Having tried them on Cathay Pacific and Swiss, I'll fondly miss this aircraft type.

There is a second tarmac area with a few more aircraft on the other side of the museum. Be sure to check out the Air France Concorde and Caravelle.

The Caravelle was a medium-range turbojet designed for European flights. It first flew in 1955 and 282 aircraft were sold.