A321 being transported on the M4
 

Does anyone know the story of the A321 eastbound on the M4 around 1530 around Swindon. First the wings, then the fuselage ..

Well, there was a 2 mile tailback behind it as it went through Culverhouse Cross near Cardiff at about 11:30 so I'm guessing it came from the scrappies at St Athan.

Ex CSA A321 en-route from St Athan to Costworld Airport (Kemble). No idea why though? It arrived at St Athan last year for parting out with eCube, now destined ASI.

http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/P...ail/story.html

Kemble? My guess would be for Part 66 Basic Training Practical work, at LRTT.

Alternatively for dismantling.

I read the title and feared the worst!

Heavy landing and bounce ? :}

There is a large amount of aircraft dismantling happening at Kemble, my guess is it is on its way to the breakers yard.

It's good to see that they have taped the windows up with yellow/black tape... You wouldn't want them falling out on a bump in the road.

Echoing ZeBedies sentiments, having emerged out of a 737 sim in EMA on 08/01/89 to be told by the engineers "one of your 73's is on the Motorway" I did momentarily catch breath . . . please title future threads with less "eyeball catching " titles :=

sharp intake of breath
 

but on the other hand I saw the Flying Scotsman on the M25 at 03:00 after I returned to the UK on a long haul flight. Yes it was on a low loader but for a moment I thought I was hallucinating. :)

ExXB, you did catch everyone's attention with that. Many remember a German 1-11 on the Autobahn near Hamburg.

My apologies, I've edited it. Thanks for the replies. It's not something you see every day.

I have to admit I feared the worse too! What interests me is that I think of 321s as tiddlers but when you see those pictures you realise that they are still quite large!

Flying Scotsman on the road would also be an impressive sight!

Curious, I've edited the thread title - and it shows correctly on the opening post, but not on the list of threads?

What am I doing wrong?

Thread titles are Mod privileges. ;)

It's a bit strange that considered it had been at eCube, St Athan which are specialists in storage and aircraft end of life that the parts have all been suddenly transferred by road to Kemble.

Daily Mail never very good with facts. A quick check on wiki gives A321 operating empty weight of 48.5 tonnes so a fuselage on its own is probably only about 15 to 18 tonnes.
But why let the facts get in the way of a headline.

As I said above, most of the airframe was 'parted out' at St Athan, so it was lightweight on the M4. ASI are masters at conversion. A Lufthansa A300 arrived at Lasham and the upper part of the forward section was sent back to Germany on a low-loader as a cabin trainer.

"Safely delivered to her temporary home in one of our hangars, the Airbus A321 awaits conversion to a training aircraft"...says the Facebook page of
the Kemble-based dismantler.

'ZG