Select Committee on Defence Fourteenth Special Report The Defence Committee published its Eleventh Report of Session 2006-07 on Strategic Lift on 5 July 2007, as House of Commons Paper HC 462. The Government's response to this report was received on 20 September 2007. This is appended below.
Government Response
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The MoD has assured us that A400M aircraft will be fitted with a Defensive Aid System and a Fuel Tank Inertion system for protection. We assume these systems will be fitted to all A400M aircraft and call on the MoD to confirm, in its response to our report, that this will be the case. It would be a false economy not to fit these systems to all A400M aircraft during manufacture, only then to retro-fit the systems later at great expense. (Paragraph 79)
17. The Department notes the Committee's comments on fitting a Defensive Aids System and a Fuel Tank Inertion system to all A400M aircraft. Procurement and fitting of Defensive systems, including that for the A400M, is kept under constant review. We constantly monitor and take judgements on a range of factors including threats, technology available and industrial capacity to provide the capabilities we need within the timescales we require. In balancing its priorities, the MoD has already ensured that all but one of our A400M aircraft will, during manufacture, be fitted with the necessary equipment to enable full Defensive systems to be installed at a later date; this includes Fuel Tank Inertion and a Defensive Aids System. Thus the higher costs of modifying the aircraft to retrofit these systems will be avoided. The one exception to this is an early development aircraft which is already under construction and cannot be fitted with the enabling pipework for Fuel Tank Inertion during the current production run. However, the MoD is currently looking at ways to address this shortfall. The fitment of defensive aids equipment for the full A400M fleet will be considered in the current Planning Round 2008.