Ares:
What You Can Learn Reading (French) Parliamentary Reports
..........Regarding the discussions on the A400M which were successfully concluded on November 5, Collet-Billon said: “There is a delicate technical point concerning the flight management systems (FMS) made by Thales. Airbus and Thales are proposing a solution which would increase the number of standards of the aircraft ... . Contractual financial dispositions, taking the form of retention of payments, are under negotiation in order to guarantee that the manufacturer will upgrade all the aircraft to the successive standards ... . The first delivery of an A400M to the French air force is scheduled for 2013 at the first operational standard. The standards will then move up until 2018; the last standards will concern functions specifically requested by the Luftwaffe [German air force].”.......