Air travel seems to have made the world a smaller place, while aeroplanes are getting ever larger. Technology means that our bags are under constant surveillance and you don’t even need to land to fill up with fuel.

The Largest Wings in the World
To lift the world’s largest passenger aircraft off the ground you need a serious pair of wings. And the new Airbus A380 has serious wings. With a span of just under 80 metres, it would take the average person a full minute to walk from one wing tip to the other.

The wings are made from panels of aluminium alloy, which are moulded into shape in vast ovens under vacuum before being attached to frame of struts and spars. Each wing eventually contains 32,000 parts, is held together by 750,000 bolts and rivets and has more than 35km of internal wiring.

Baggage Handling
Every day hundreds of airports across the world are dealing with thousands of passengers – and their luggage. Heathrow airport alone processes a quarter of a million pieces of luggage every day. Making sure that millions of suitcases, holdalls and golf bags travel on the same plane as their owners is a massive technological challenge.

Each item is given a special code at check-in and then travels on a series of automated conveyer belts and unmanned cars that carry the luggage around the airport to the correct departure point. The luggage is constantly monitored by sensors to ensure that it is on the correct route.

In-Flight Refuelling
Military strike aircraft are thirsty machines and have a limited range on a single tank of fuel. To keep jets airborne often means that they need to be refuelled – in mid air. The jet fighter draws up behind a large tanker aircraft which unfurls a long hose that has a kind of basket at the end with a special nozzle.

The pilot of the smaller jet then manoeuvres his aircraft so that a short probe can be inserted into the nozzle and the fuel can be transferred. The tanker can refuel two or even three smaller planes at the same time at a rate of more than 2,000 litres a minute.