Airbus ready to ditch A400M?

[wild goose]

This report has just surfaced regarding the possible termination of the A400M project.
Lockheed should perhaps plan to ramp up their C-130J production beyond the planned increase for 2010-12

Report: Airbus Ready to Ditch A400M - Defense News (http://defensenews.com/story.php?i=4442571&c=EUR&s=AIR)

[ab33t]

Wow this is a shocking rumuor after all the pomp and ceremony at the first flight

[powerstall]

I always wondered why Airbus took the whole A400 project, they could've just passed the program to their sister company ATR which is concentrated on turboprops. :confused:

[VinRouge]

FT.com / Companies / Aerospace & Defence - Airbus threatens to scrap A400M aircraft (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dfb12870-f9f1-11de-adb4-00144feab49a.html)

Airbus is threatening to scrap its €20bn ($28.8bn) programme to build the A400M military aircraft, Europe’s most high profile defence project, unless governments agree to come up with more money for it before the end of this month.
“We need to stop this constant drain on resources,” Airbus said on Tuesday. “We’ve asked the governments to take their share of the burden and this needs to be done as soon as possible.”
The threat is seen as a last desperate bid by the European aircraft maker to increase the pressure on the European partner governments that have signed up to the programme, particularly Berlin, to finance the cost overrun on the troubled project.
German is the largest customer for the aircraft and has so far taken a hard line in long-running negotiations to address the rising costs.
Analysts warned that abandoning the programme would be costly for the aircraft maker, which would have to repay €5.7bn in development funding under the original programme contract.
Cancelling the project would also prove hugely embarrassing for Airbus, which exclusively makes commercial airlines and is aiming to break into the defence procurement market via the A400M.
It would also prove a big setback for the main European partners in Nato, the transatlantic military alliance. The impetus for the A400M, which was first conceived in the early 1980s, came after the Kosovo conflict in 1999 which sorely exposed the lack of European military transport capacity.
The contract for the programme was signed in 2003 after Germany budgetary constraints had threatened to kill the programme. The US had strongly opposed the programme at the time in part to protect its near-hegemony over military tranport aircraft. Washington also argued that the funds would be put to better use in other areas addressing the large technology gap between US and other Nato forces.
Bad new for airbus, great news for more C-17 and 130J. Sounds more like posturing by EADS/Airbust TBH, turkeys dont vote for christmas and Politicians certainly dont vote for job losses in the middle of a recession.

[aviate1138]

The UK government [deliberate lower case g] could chop most of its useless Quangos and save some 130 Billion pounds!!!!!!

Each household in the UK pays more than £3300 per year to support 1160+ bureaucratic nightmares. 700,000 bowler hats would be on the street but then most of them have done nothing for the UK and I would rather see the A400M in large numbers than know that quangos were deliberating on such essential subjects as ....

"Examples of quangos - often obscure, unlikely-sounding or plain baffling - include the Public Diplomacy Board, the Third Sector Commissioning Task Force, the Home Grown Cereals Authority, the Tax Appeals Modernisation Stakeholder Group, the Advisory Committee on Packaging and the Work and Pension Longitudinal Study Ethics Committee.
Several top-earning quangocrats are paid comfortably more than the Prime Minister's salary of £185,000.
The latest figures will reignite concerns over Labour's handling of public services and levels of waste in Whitehall public spending.
The £124billion of public funds given to non-departmental public bodies is up from £79billion three years ago."


Madness!

[Supermattt]

I agree with VinRouge, it is just posturing for getting funding sorted. I would be very surprised if A400 was cancelled.

[M2dude]

I worked on a stand at the 1994 Farnborough Airshow, and I remember that at the show there was a full scale wooden mockup of (what is now) the A400M).
SIXTEEN years down the road we have JUST had the maiden flight and the project is zillions over budget. (But EADS are demanding even more, or they are threatening to throw their toys in the pram). Forgetting (for once!!) the rest of Europe, we should ask does the RAF really need this thing?. We've a tactical transport fleet primarily comprised of C130K's & J's, and a few C17's, which have served us incredibly well and continue to do so in exremely trying times. OK, the old K is getting long in the tooth and is progressively being withdrawn, but rather than waste EVEN MORE money on this Scarebus thing wouldn't we be far better served by buying more Js and C17s? (As an old Herc man I always used to think that she was the best transport aircraft that the RAF has ever had. The C17 has now changed my opinion, I think the throne is now occupied by the former McDonnel Douglas clan :D).