Well I dont think its unreasonable that the C-17 line would not have been sitting half as idle if the Grizzly hadnt been in anyone's pipeline projection. I imagine plenty European nations must have looked at C-17 whilst still on the drawing board and thought it would be nice to have, but sadly too expensive.
Well look where we are now. Given the humble sales numbers that C-17 attained, is it not equally arguable that A400 will most likely end up in the same situation? Certainly if Germany cancels. Being different for the sake of being different (and supporting airbus jobs), both sides end up with eye wateringly expensive development costs which are tough to be profitable on.
Much though C-17 was initially deemed to be a stop gap solution for the RAF, if one follows subsequent history, is it not about time we started accepting the writing on the wall. Which is that we have become increasingly dependent on larger usually US led programmes (Airseeker/P8/F35) in pursuit of economies of scale.
Or shall we continue the Mod Procurement /MRA4 route
