Now structurally complete, the A400M Final Assembly facility at the San Pablo site in Seville is an impressive sight. Consisting of the main assembly hall and 5 finishing station modules, it covers a surface area of 120 000 square metres. At 540 metres long its overall length exceeds that of the A380 assembly hangars in Toulouse by 50 metres. Site planning included the provision of a completely new access road connecting the facility directly to the N-4 highway. Jigs and tools are currently being installed in the facility ready for production to start soon.

With the exception of components arriving from adjacent Spanish locations, all the major assemblies and sub-assemblies for the A400M will arrive at the FAL on the Beluga Super Transporter.

As part of its mission to deliver the first nose fuselage section to Getafe, the Beluga first flew to Seville to undertake a programme of trials to test the speciallydesigned equipment and procedures that will be used for unloading the aircraft and tranferring the A400M components to the the assembly jigs.

Unloading trials at the FAL Main Hangar, February 2007