I personally have never heard 10 C17s being the desired number from the UK stand-point. The UK was always after 8, with Boeing saying it wouldn't place a sim in UK until there were 10 A/C for it to support. However, I've been out of the "loop" for a few years now....
So, back to the point,
Diario de Sevilla - EADS anuncia un retraso de al menos tres aņos en la entrega del...
The article above (for those who can't speak spanish) is basically saying that first delivery will not be until 3 years after first flight. With first flight delayed until late 2010, that puts FAF delivery at late 2013, and RAF at around 2015.
Good news is though, from one who is partially 'in the know', I haven't heard of any reduction in capability.......yet!
I can agree that there have been some rather major underestimations made on both sides of the fence. Airbus thought it was 'just another Airbus' and allocated resources accordingly, while the customer wanted a mini C17 straight off the bat and underestimated exactly how much work and technology has gone into a C17. Not to mention the fact that the C17 is a bit bigger, with jets and so the engineering solutions can be a little bit more....chunky!!
Never had a chance of working like that, but we're getting there, slowly but slowly...
As for the "other aircraft" that could be offered, as EADS is the parent company for CASA as well as Airbus, the pax role could be filled by the offered A330s, and the flat floor role
could be filled with a few C-295s. With 57 already in international service, at least it's available and has a proven track record.
Naturally a 295 is smaller than Albert, but the stats aren't too bad really.
71 seats + 4 optional
Floor load of 3 land rovers or similar
5 108"x88" pallets.
Not too far off a Mk1 for payload, but speed and range suffer a bit as it's only a twin.