In case you needed re-assurance that the Airbus A400M is going to be a major player in the US military transport market, EADS last month posted the following chart on its web site:
So EADS projects selling more than 400 A400Ms in North America! Subtract 20 or 30 for Canada, and that still leaves a US fleet larger than the combined Boeing C-17s and Lockheed Martin C-130Js currently on order!
(Note to EADS: you may wish to refrain from listing your market projections for the Chinese market on the same slide as the US market for the same aircraft.)
But EADS' projections also change my thinking a little. Last week, I made the somewhat rash prediction that a Boeing/Antonov AN-70 would battle an EADS/Lockheed team offering the A400M.
I still thiink there could be a link between Boeing and Antonov. The AN-70 is too good of an airframe to pass up, and Boeing doesn't have any other options if the C-17 line expires in less than a few years.
But an EADS and Lockheed partnership now seems very unlikely. Lockheed is not going to simply cede a potential market of that size to a European competitor. Instead, I'm betting now that Lockheed will try in some way to respond. The question is: how?
Despite a difficult birth, the C-130J has proven itself as an able workhorse. But it is still no match on paper for the promised performance of the larger A400M. Lockheed has no time and no apparent source of funds to develop an all-new aircraft, but it doesn't have to abandon the C-130J entirely. If memory serves, Lockheed has spoken in the past of a "Fat Hercules"; basically, a wider version of the C-130J that can haul a bulkier payload.
Lockheed still has time on its side. The botched development of the A400M will keep the C-130J's current size and capability viable on the market until at least 2015.
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