Moderators: richierich, ua900, PanAm_DC10, hOMSaR
| Quote: Airbus Defence and Space's A400M military transport aircraft has successfully demonstrated its capability to conduct simultaneous air-to-air refuelling (AAR) of two F/A-18 fighters during a series of trials at an undisclosed location. |
| Quoting r2rho (Reply 99): What does it have to do with Spain? |
| Quoting Revelation (Reply 78): One analyst, asking not to be identified, said however that Enders had "missed a chance" to resolve the A400M problems once and for all by uprooting it from Spain, which has had the lead on military transporters since folding its CASA business into a mainly Franco-German merger that created Airbus Group in 2000. |
| Quoting Revelation (Reply 78): Urena-Raso "is a good manager but he was caught between the complexities of the German specifications, Spanish concerns over control, and Airbus in Toulouse who are fundamental to the whole project," a person familiar with the program said. |
| Quoting r2rho (Reply 99): So it is not just a Spanish problem, even if some would like to make it so. Having said that, Spain does risk losing influence within Airbus if the program further screws up, regardless of whose fault it is. |
| Quoting r2rho (Reply 99): And on a sidenote, if it weren't for the former CASA that EADS absorbed, Airbus would have no military products at all (except a part of Typhoon). |
| Quoting mrg (Reply 95): Oh, come on! Most Euro fan bois can take relevant and fair criticism from your side of the pond on the chin I don't know why more and more aircraft programmes go off the rails. Everything is computer-aided nowadays. The F-16: first flight in 1974. Four years later first flight of an F-16 built on another continent. IOC one month later. They just don't build them like they used to. |
| Quoting kanban (Reply 104): some financial input on the program.. nothing earthshaking though |
| Quoting LAXintl (Reply 109): Turkey expects further delivery delays. |
| Quote: Airbus Military is in the process of negotiating a new delivery schedule for the A400M but has not so far published a timetable. However, industry sources say its base production plan of 14 aircraft for this year includes two for Turkey. "We are currently discussing A400M production with all the customers and we will communicate further on that when the discussions are complete," an Airbus Military spokesman said. Airbus clashed publicly with Turkey over the A400M last year, saying it was Ankara that was delaying taking delivery of the first aircraft as a "bargaining" move. But several buyers, notably Germany, have grown increasingly concerned about the latest round of delays, and analysts say declarations about the troubled project have tended to reflect tough negotiating positions on all sides. Turkey took part in a seven-nation, 3.5-billion-euro bailout in 2010 that was supposed to put an end to chronic delays and technical problems with the European transporter plane. But Airbus acknowledged last year that it faced new delays and in February took a charge of 551 million euros ($618 million). |
| Quoting Revelation (Reply 111): So what is Turkey bargaining over? Do they want financial give-backs due to late delivery and/or lack of functionality? It's kind of hard to ask for give-backs if you were a part of the 2010 bail-out, no? |
| Quoting LAXintl (Reply 112): In order to accept the aircraft, Turkey received compensation from EADS in form of an agreement to increase placement of work and purchase of components from Turkish companies over the next 10 years by additional €1billion - which was estimated to generate 500 jobs and 4 million man hours. |
| Quote: Airbus Defence and Space (DS) recently doubled the production rate of its A400M Atlas airlifter as it looks to make good on delayed deliveries, the company has revealed. Production at the final assembly line (FAL) in Seville, Spain, has now been raised from 1.25 to 2.5 aircraft per month in an attempt to address the backlog in deliveries that has built up as a result of what the company calls 'supplier problems'. "We've upped the pace so that we can catch up in terms of deliveries," the head of A400M manufacturing, Andreas Thürnagel, told the company's in-house On Air magazine, adding, "We can't afford any hold-ups." Airbus DS had planned to accelerate production to 2.5 aircraft per month at the end of 2015, but its decision to bring this forward by eight months follows on the back of failed delivery targets in 2013 and 2014. |
| Quoting KarelXWB (Reply 114): Meanwhile Airbus is accelerating production ramp-up |
| Quote: "We are targeting a sales announcement for the A400M this year," Antonio Rodriguez-Barberan, an executive at Airbus Defence and Space, told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Istanbul late on Tuesday. "We hope this will drive a domino effect." |
| Quote: The French Air Force will buy four Lockheed Martin Corp. C-130 Hercules transport planes as it seeks to cope with the late delivery of Airbus Group NV A400M aircraft like the one that crashed in Spain earlier this month. France has set aside an extra 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) for military gear over the next four years, according to the Defense ministry’s budget bill disclosed at a cabinet meeting yesterday. A share of the funds will be devoted to the purchase of the Lockheed C-130s, a ministry official said. |
| Quote: The secretaries of state of the A400M member countries have set up a “Program Monitoring Team (PMT)” to analyze and judge Airbus plans to bring the project back on track, according to a German defense ministry letter sent to members of parliament. ... According to the letter, procurement-agency Occar expects an offer to negotiate from Airbus soon that could be the basis for a revised development and production contract for the A400. Germany alone has said the delays have added around €300 million ($330 million) in cost and will demand financial compensation. However, the defense ministry says negotiations could be delayed because of the accident. Germany also believes the delay in the A400M’s defensive-aid subsystem could be 1-2 years, and lead to a capability gap of two years, given that the C-160 Transalls were to be phased out at the end of 2018. But the defense ministry now says the Transalls could continue to fly until 2021 under certain conditions. |
| Quoting Grizzly410 (Reply 124): Nope, ZM403 is MSN20 ! |
| Quoting KarelXWB (Reply 128): Airbus took a fresh charge of 290 million on new development delays caused by the crash of an A400M during a test flight in May. |
| Quote: Airbus said the crash had caused setbacks for the delivery schedule that were still being assessed, while low inflation had also pushed a system for price adjustments into the red. Airbus has told buyer nations that not all the systems for protecting the plane from external threats and other military features will be available when they are needed, and in some cases not at all, defence sources say. |
| Quoting KarelXWB (Reply 128): Airbus took a fresh charge of 290 million on new development delays caused by the crash of an A400M during a test flight in May. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...50731 |
| Quoting nomadd22 (Reply 130): I imagine the direct charge from the crash will be even more than that. |
| Quoting GRIVely (Reply 132): A typical SOF support drop zone was 200 meters, or less, in length and maybe 50-75 wide. With steerable chutes you only had about one to 1.5 mins to dump everything and get out. Lots less time if the troops only had regular T-10 chutes or non-instrumented cargo packages. |
| Quoting GRIVely (Reply 132): Oh, you don't have that stuff? |
| Quoting GRIVely (Reply 132): Not a mission constrained cripple |
| Quoting N14AZ (Reply 136): When is the next German Air Force due? |
| Quoting mrg (Reply 135): Quoting GRIVely (Reply 132): Oh, you don't have that stuff? What exactly is your point? Of approximately 430 C-130 in active USAF service, roughly 80 are equipped with "that stuff". Eventually the MC-130 fleet will comprise 70 MC-130J models. If it is deemed necessary to equip a small number of A400M with "that stuff", I see no reason why it won't be possible. Airbus and its customers could just resort to installing off-the-shelve systems but that would be too cost-effecient. Better to develop new stuff- at a high price. The A400M was not developed just to insert Special Forces into an LZ. Quoting GRIVely (Reply 132): Not a mission constrained cripple It can offload a 32 ton payload onto a CBR 6 strip. That kind of stuff happens often. Combat drops don't. |
| Quoting GRIVely (Reply 143): Thank you for the information. I understand that only a subset of USAF tactical air lifters are equipped with the expensive equipment needed for air drops or landings into contested LZ's. How about flying in to do a re supply or pick up casualties. What do the German military use when they need to do that or insert or retrieve a spec ops team? And you can predict that combat drops don't happen often? Good luck with that. I have never been able to plan for unplanned/unexpected missions. We just did general planning and training and responded when the FRAGO and Air Warning Order came in. |
| Quote: Long delays in the development of the aircraft’s Standard Operating Clearances (SOCs), which allow it to perform tactical missions, have resulted in aircraft being delivered with differing equipment fits and capabilities |
| Quote: Despite these apparent hiccups, the RAF is happy with its A400M fleet and the air arm is now the A400M fleet leader in terms of flying hours, with 900 hr. achieved on the four-strong fleet over 300 sorties. Willcox said reliability levels are also high for an aircraft so early in its career. The U.K. has already completed night vision goggle trials, noise characterization tests, and the first tie-down schemes for cargo. |
| Quote: With four operational Airbus A400Ms in use, the UK Royal Air Force is working overtime to “unlock” the potential of the service's new tactical transport, with one aircraft now in the USA to assess carriage of the US Army's Stryker armoured fighting vehicle. |
| Quoting GRIVely (Reply 143): How about flying in to do a re supply or pick up casualties. What do the German military use when they need to do that or insert or retrieve a spec ops team? And you can predict that combat drops don't happen often? |
| Quoting Revelation (Reply 145): It'll be interesting to hear how those tests go. |
| Quoting Grizzly410 (Reply 142): |
