King wings its way
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• Moving 26m long A340 Airbus wings, the largest ever built at British Aerospace's Chester plant, to Manchester airport called for an entirely new type of transporter from King Trailers. The move forms the first leg of the wing's journey to Deutsche Airbus. Bremen.
The 26.1m. 3.81m wide 45tonne GTW platform trailer is equipped with computercontrolled automatic steering, sensed from the king pin, to all four air suspended axles. In addition, the transporter has four hydraulically-powered and self-levelling jacking legs that raise it 2.0m to off load the wing via a scissor lift into the Guppy aircraft that delivers it to Bremen.
To provide stability in transit, 3.3m-wide 10 tonne BPW NMX axles with 2.08m spring centres are used to achieve a centre of gravity 2.7m above the ground and up to 434mm away from its centre A raise/lower facility on BPW's OT air suspension can alter the 914mm (laden) deck height in transit and for tight manoeuvring, a power override to the automatic steering is provided.