Whatever the "here & now" needs are, and possible future needs, there's a real nightmare scenario that nobody so far has raised .
The new US administration will (probably already is) be looking very hard at costs in every direction, and with so much "fiat money" (not the Italian Fiat) being poured into economies, even cautious Germany, there are certainly rocky times to come and ALL budgets will suffer. Add to this the (strong?) possibility that by the time kit like the F-35, nice big carriers and the A400M can be service-ready, troops will be out of Afghanistan as well as Iraq.
And then how do the various nations' military justify this, that or the other programme?
Pity the bright young engineers at MTU ("stripling Dipl. Ings "?) couldn't do a FADEC (Europrop is very silent on what they used to control the engine on the test rigs and seems content to let Airbus Military take the public flak), but Airbus is right to say out loud that the A400M's in-service date will be even later: they can't know when the engine will be reliable enough for flight tests on the A400M to begin, nor how long after first flight the test programme will take.
We must all hope that the engine does make a second flight from Marshall's soon, or we'll begin to wonder if the borescoping after the first flight turned up any nasties ...
Be all that as it may, and apart from all the wise (and less wise) words that have preceded this post, and also apart from the shock-horror noises that draconic cuts will provoke, isn't it a very strong possibility that sheer economic constraints will mean that not one of the programmes mentioned will survive?
Happy New Year(s) to all ...
