Nice set of photos - and congratulations to all concerned, specially in getting them onto the Net so quickly .
Nice way to end the year and a hope that (at last - sorry, Airbus !!!) the A400M propgramme will be able to get moving as hoped ... Roll on '09, the end of the C-130 phase and the A400M flight test programme proper ...
Why nobody's had good words for Airbus I can't understand - see what they've done in the civil field, starting from ZE-RO way back in the early '70s. Perhaps the A400M was a move into uncharted territory that many inside Airbus would have preferred not to have been made, but the market for a C-130 replacement hasn't gone away ... And learning curves are just that - for learning. And learning's something that Airbus has historically been very, very good at ...
BTW - It's over a decade since I retired from Airbus, but I'm still as proud of the company as I was when I joined (for the A310 programme) and look forward to seeing the whingeing naysayers confounded once again (on both shores of the Atlantic and the Channel) as they have been so often in the past.
Happy Holidays and a Good New Year to all,
Jig Peter
