Aircraft: January 2010 Archives

Courtesy of my former colleague David Kaminski-Morrow, here are pictures showing that Qatari C-17 that bounced through Sevilla and duly turned up in the nightmare that is Haiti. Countries like Qatar are very keen to be seen playing their role in third-world relief in the years ahead - a key market for military airlifters. Pix from Sky TV News I think.

So driving into work on this sunny Seville / Sevilla morning with not many cares in the world, I have one of those "what the heck is that doing there" moments.

In fact I first have a "what the heck is that" moment. But there´s no doubt about it - tucked in with the usual couple of 737s, TNT 146, bizjets and light-singles there is unquestionably a Boeing C-17. Which in the actual home of the mighty A400M is not wholly expected.

And not just any old C-17 either.

Apologies for the lousy pic, but I only had my Blackberry and was getting very funny looks from the airport police on whome I did not fancy trying out my Spanish. But here it is.

 In fact the aircraft in question is this one. And I haven´t been able to find out what it´s doing here. Does anyone out there know?

So, unexpectedly early in the market wars to come, the two contenders meet. Not for the last time you can be sure.

Here´s our own Sevillan candidate this week at the EADS media briefing. It´s MSN2 which will fly in March. MSN1 is airborne on its sixth flight right at this moment.