Name For The A-400m.

[Hobbes]

Pfft, airbus is trying to market the A-400 as something new that none other aircraft can deliver, however it isnt.  

Oh, nonsense. That's like claiming the Boeing 777 is useless because the 747 already fills the 'carry lots of passengers' requirement. The A400M sits between the Hercules and C-17 in terms of payload, range, speed (and cost, presumably). Not everyone can afford C-17s. The only real competitor to the A400M is the Il-76.

And how on earth do they want that big chunk to go 700 kph with turbo prop?  The sleek swept wing bear could just do 700 with 4 honkin great engines.

Um, no. The Bear does 900+ km/h, with NK-12s that deliver 15k shp each. The A400M gets 4x 11k+ shp, and uses the latest propeller designs (probably a bit more efficient) so 700 km/h doesn't sound too far-fetched.  

[Archibald]

wow! The A400M is just as hatred as De Gaulle (and  JMNs ) here     )

As Hobbes said...

PLUS the C-17 is way too expensive, and the production line nearly stopped (or already stopped) because of a cruel lack of orders.
Fifteen  aircrafts for Canada, Australia and GB... that's few compared to 180 orders for the A-400M.
concerning the load, it 16 metric tons for a C-130J , 37 tons for an A-400M, and 80 tons for a C-17.
The C-130J is vastly inferior to the A-400M in performances (shorter range, and half the load).

B-777, high speed propellers are currently boosting performances of the late marks  Hawkeyes, An-70, ATRs  and many others aircrafts. The A-400M top speed would be 780 kph or so, mach 0.72.

and building of the first aircraft is well advanced in Seville (former home of CASA, now EADS).
Delays in the A380 didn't affected the A400M...  

[anthonyp]

Delays in the A380 didn't affected the A400M...

Yes they did, but indirectly.  It's a lessons learned sort of thing, where Airbus management didn't want to run into the same issues with production on the A400M as they did with the A380.

Article on Defensenews.com about A400M delay.

[Shasper]

I've been hearing about this bird since '99 or so (even then it was still on CAD), and since it STILL hasnt left the drawing board yet, my attitude is *I'll believe it when I see it*

(Some would find my lack of faith "disturbing")


SHas B)

[AeroplaneDriver]

I've been hearing about this bird since '99 or so (even then it was still on CAD), and since it STILL hasnt left the drawing board yet, my attitude is *I'll believe it when I see it*

(Some would find my lack of faith "disturbing")


SHas B)

Granted, the program has slipped considerably, but it's not fair to say it hasnt left the drawing board.  

Personally I do hope the program succeeds as it could become a very useful platform, both tactically and strategically.

[Shasper]

Right, well then may I ask where is the Prototype?  

Shas B)

[AeroplaneDriver]

Right, well then may I ask where is the Prototype?  

Shas B)

On the production line, with a test flight coming soon hopefully.

Admittedly way behind the original schedule (as every other multi-national program has been), but I think we can all agree that while still a significant step from service, it is also a step past the drawing board.

I dont disagree with you that this thing has become a bit of a mess, but to be fair it has gone past the drwaing board.  

[Geoff_B]

Yeap the delays are largely political, and a common problem with EU projects as each government needs to ratify their comitment and then order before the next step could be taken. As a result various governments had trouble getting the go ahead with their parlements for various issues to do with them having to find the cash.

However once the polictical hurdles were cleared the management of the production of the aircraft was passed over to Airbus where they have gone to great efforts to play catch up.

Shasper the prototype parts are currently being assembled around Europe and starting to head for the final assembly site. Some of these are state of the art components, in terms of design and construction, yet progress has still been to schedule in most cases. Hopefully we will see the first one appear sometime this year but i don't think flight tests are scheduled till 2008.

BTW does anybody else think the A400M looks a hell of alot like a turbo prop powered version of the HS-681 final design? Something that was developed 40 yrs ago  !!!  

[BillSlim]

In a way it is a shame it wasn't handed over to Airbus sooner. As a private company they could have presumably taken a commercial decsion and risked developing the aircraft, as they would have done with their airliners, rather than waiting for some governments (cough Germany cough) to sign up.

It does look a bit like the HS-681, but then again there are only so many ways to design a cargo plane.    

[Archibald]

Hope we'll seen a cool 1/72 scale model of the beast soon, there's so many things to make with it...    

[ysi_maniac]

Returning to thread's theme:
Expected Expecting Cargo Plane (EECP)    

[AeroplaneDriver]

How about "Atlas"?

[kitnut617]

BTW does anybody else think the A400M looks a hell of alot like a turbo prop powered version of the HS-681 final design? Something that was developed 40 yrs ago  !!!

Yes it does from the couple of pictures I've seen of the HS-681 plus the excellent model shown on this forum.

As to a name, well what with the RAF's current form of re-using names, I could see it being called an Argosy II     ^_^

Robert

[Archibald]

Atlas is cool, sounds like Noratlas, the old cargo of AdA and Luftwaffe (before the Transall).

[glanini]

"EUROLIFT" it is a good idea maybe also "EUROTHEFT" since the Final assembly was stolen from Italy to be given to Spain and guess to who CASA was sold to