Aircraft

Europrop International will produce more than 800 TP400-D6 engines for the 192 Airbus Military A400Ms on order for seven European launch nations, plus export buyers Malaysia and South Africa.

With the aircraft's developers predicting strong further sales potential, EPI president Nick Durham says the engine consortium will be ready to support Airbus Military as and when new sales opportunities arise, "using our partner companies and the resources they have available".

Crucially, Durham believes the TP400 will remain the first choice propulsion system should the A400M be offered to meet emerging US military transport requirements, despite recent speculation that a new powerplant could be sought in a bid to increase the percentage of domestic equipment used on the type.

"I don't think it's very likely there'd be a new engine," he says. "This engine has been specifically designed to integrate with this aircraft - to find another one would be very challenging at this time.

"I think it's more likely that we would work on looking at the US content: that's something that our parent companies have plenty of experience of."