It's a bird, it's a plane ... it's a full-blown eclipse?

No. It's a whopping great A380 Airbus, the world's largest passenger airliner. Capable of carrying between 500 and 800 people, depending on the class configuration, it has a range of over 15,500 kilometres, and a wingspan that would take Usain Bolt about (reaches for calculator) ... 7.704 seconds to sprint the 80 metres from one tip to the other.

All of which spells BIG. So very big that you might well ask: how do they stay up?

Well, if there's one thing that keeps these extraordinary aircraft in business - apart from, that is, the elegance of the Bernoulli Principle (the science of airflow over the wings, that lifts all planes into the air), and the general prosperity of the middle classes - it's the four stonking great engines, Rolls Royce Trent 900s, each one the size of a modest family caravan, and with doubtless every bit as much going on inside.