Question: How long does it take to build an aircraft

Ryan Durnall answered on 14 Mar 2024:

Hello! Thank you for the great question 🙂

It actually doesn’t take very long at all to build an aircraft from scratch. Most aircraft parts come part-assembled, so it’s basically like building a model airplane or a big Lego build! The largest passenger plane in the world, the Airbus A380, can be completely assembled in around 2 weeks and will have around 1,200 people working on it to make that happen.

I work on the Eurofighter Typhoon, which is a small fighter jet. My job is to service the jet, which means we bring it into our hangar, take it all to bits, inspect it all, fix anything that’s broken, put it back together and then test it all to make sure it works and it’s safe to fly. I work in a team of around 6-8 people to do this. Depending on the type of service, we can be working on the jet from anywhere between 4 – 10 months. It takes a lot longer to maintain an aircraft than it does to build it!