Back to reality
Extract from AWST 16 June.
"... although the Standard Operating Clearance (SOC) 1, ... will now be introduced on the first two UK RAF aircraft, MSN15 and 16, which are due for delivery in September. A400Ms to date have been delivered with basic logistics capabilities such as general transport of troops and loads, medevac flights and aircraft raising and kneeling to ease loading. These capabilities have allowed the French Air Force to conduct strategic airlift flights to Mali and French Guyana. [sic]
SOC 1 enables aerial delivery of paratroopers, tactical communications management, combat offload of vehicles, unpaved runway operations and defensive aids and fuel inerting systems. It also delivers a specific UK requirement of wedge-based paradrops, using a device to the aircraft ramp, so that equipment can be paradropped without affecting the aircraft's ability to drop paratroopers from the doors in the rear fuselage.
When it arrives in 2015, SOC1.5 will give the A400M a full defensive-aids-suite capability as well as the ability to deliver loads from the air and be refueled in flight. The last SOC iteration due in 2018 will add an all weather, low-level flight capability using sensors and terrain referencing."
Exciting times ?
LFH