Flightglobal:

EADS has asked Airbus Military A400M customer nations to accept a further......

Author: Andrew Doyle

Date: 12 January 2009

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Clients should expect to see the A400m around "3 years after first flight". That is some time to wait for them to get the product out there.

Propulsion still seems to be the main problem, do you think we will still see it flying in '09?

The way they are going no wonder…. with experience in hot, combusting environments myself, i would say they are probably looking to re-design certain flow paths and maybe components of the engine, i have a feeling heat distribution around certain parts is not ideal, still after loads of CFD modelling and test work. Otherwise, why take so long! MA in Cambridge they have test-flown the engine with, "apparently", no major concerns….. :-O00oo!  So, who knows...

The A400M must fly this year and sooner in the year rather than later. This is give some confidence to the customers who at this stage must be near the point of giving up on the A400M and that EADS is serious about the aircraft.

It has been reported that A400M not only has engine problems, primarily with the FADEC, but it is also considerably overweight and consequently the performance will not meet the design targets.  By indicating that the program is slipping by 2/3 years shows that there is a considerable amount of truth with these reported problems and that some time consuming redesign is being programmed in to fix them before the aircraft can be delivered..

Recently, EADS announced a reorganisation of its military division  Usually reorganisations are designed to improve productivity and reduce costs etc. etc. etc. but it would seem that in this case the opposite is going to occur.

In recent times the only countries with companies that can produce large military transport aircraft have been either American and Russian.  The United Kingdom haven't produced a half decent military freighter for many years and this also applies to the major European countries who have in the main relied on Americans produced aircraft.  Therefore, EADS has no history on its side to enable it to produce such an aircraft and as all indications are that the A400M will probably also become a another example of a exceptional idea that never attained its potential e.g Short Belfast, Fairy Rotodyne, Transall C160 and there is probably a French and Italian design that falls into this group.

Pressure from Lockheed Martin with its C130XL, or a westernised Antonov AN-70 will, or from the Kawasaki C-X and the Embraer C-395 (albeit fitted with turbofans) will increase and will cause the A400M customers to re-investigate alternatives.

The pressure is on EADS to proceed with some degree of haste to produce the A400M before the customers give up and go to the circling salesmen from Lockheed, Antonov, Kawasaki and Embraer for replacements for to their worn out C130's and C160's

A4K 

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