PPRuNe Forums - A400M Flight Testing Progress

PPRuNe Forums (https://www.pprune.org/)

- Military Aviation (https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation-57/)

- - A400M Flight Testing Progress (https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/440739-a400m-flight-testing-progress.html)

Hmm, not sure, this article for May 2017 indicated that paratrooper dropping and defensive equipment was still of concern at least in Germany- not sure that has been worked out. Also the French seem to have given up as using them to refuel helos, and ordered more C-130's. Worrisome that it looks like some capabilities will be dropped entirely. Not good. If only the C-17 line could have held out a few more years....

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g...-idUSKBN1841NY

Quote:

Originally Posted by airsound (Post 9812287)

Stunning to see a big aircraft flown tactically

From the perspective of an ill-informed civvy, it looks like all it would be achieving is making an easy target of itself - not low enough to properly hide in the hills?

Quite sprightly for a big girl...and well below the hill tops.

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2018...or-airlifters/

South Korea and Spain seek deal to swap trainer jets for airlifters

SEOUL — South Korean and Spanish defense officials are to discuss a possible trade of trainer and transport aircraft, according to arms procurement officials and industry sources in the Asian nation. The deal may involve about 50 basic and advanced trainer jets built by Korea Aerospace Industries, or KAI, and four to six Airbus A400M airlifters, they said.

“South Korea and Spain plan to hold a joint defense industry committee in Madrid this month to discuss bilateral issues,” said an official with the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The swap deal is not an official agenda item on the table, but the sides are open to discussing it.”

The proposal was made by Spain during the Farnborough International Airshow in the U.K. last July, as the Spanish Air Force seeks to replace its older trainer fleet of Chilean ENAER T-35C Pillan jets, according to an industry source privy to the potential swap deal.

“Spain ordered 27 A400M transport aircraft from Airbus but has decided not to use 13 of them, so the Spanish defense authorities have got approval from Airbus to sell the surplus products to other countries,” the source said. “Spain wants to sell four to six A400Ms to South Korea, and it buys 34 KT-1 basic trainer aircraft and 20 more T-50 supersonic trainer jets for advanced pilot training if possible.” If the deal is reached, Spain is willing to sell the A400M plane at 15 percent of the per-unit price of some $27 million, he said, adding the total value of the swap deal could be approximately $890 million.

The envisaged deal could be a breakthrough for KAI to sell more of its trainer aircraft after its recent defeat in a U.S. Air Force trainer competition.

“Any swap deal is delegated to the DAPA and its Spanish counterpart, and we’re waiting on the results,” a KAI spokesman said. Airbus would not discuss the prospect of such a deal.

Industry sources believe the proposed deal could meet the South Korean Air Force’s need of acquiring larger airlifters for longer-range missions. During an Oct. 19 parliamentary inspection of the Air Force, the service revealed a plan to procure four more large transport aircraft in addition to its existing fleet of CN-235 and C-130 planes. “We have a plan to deploy larger transport aircraft to increase our capacity of rapid force deployment, emergency relief, peacekeeping and other operations over long distances,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Lee Wang-keun said in a report to lawmakers.

Preliminary research on the requirements of the larger airlifter acquisition will be conducted between 2019 and 2020 before a request for proposal is issued for full operational capability by 2022, according to Air Force officials.

The A400M Atlas is regarded as a strong candidate for the airlift procurement program, as the C-17 Globemaster III production line run by Boeing is shut down. The A400M can carry 116 fully equipped troops and up to 66 stretchers accompanied by 25 medical personnel.

Quote:

A Royal Air Force (RAF) Atlas delivered a cargo load weighing 23 tonnes by parachute over Salisbury Plain in a record-breaking test of the transport aircraft’s next-generation capabilities. The drops, representing the heaviest overall load ever air-dropped by a UK aircraft, took place as part of trials overseen by Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) in partnership with the RAF, the Joint Air Delivery Test and Evaluation Unit and Air Warfare Centre, QinetiQ and Airbus.

From

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKc...kF6lWMNnCmMsag

This airdrop appears to show pallets being gravity extracted and their recovery parachutes being released by static line. On C-17 this would be the "Dual Row Airdrop System" which has a capacity of 10,000 lb per pallet and up to 18 pallets or a little over 80 tonnes. For some reason the RAF chose not to train their C-17 crews for this capability which is already paid for and included in their C-17s. The question now is will the RAF fund training for its Atlas crews to do this mission after spending big bucks to develop the capability and (presumably) installing it on their A400s.

Separately, what is the cost of adding this system to A400? Will the RAF fund all their A400s to receive this system? And since a very similar system is already installed and paid for on the RAF's C-17s, will the RAF start training its C-17 crews for this mission?

...where to start Ken....
1. It’s CDS, not DRAS
2. The system is fitted as standard for all A400M ac
3. The UK don’t have a requirement for DRAS, therefore they won’t be dropping it anytime soon, if ever.
.... that’s all for now....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trumpet trousers (Post 10316688)

Yeah I kinda thought so. The pallets were square rather than rectangular and smallish and even looked like they may have been made of wood. But they seemed to fill the cargo bay so I thought they were bigger than a CDS bundle. I guess the A400 cargo bay is just smaller than my eye expected. But I understand that RAF C-17 crews aren't trained for CDS either. Will that change?

Spanish Eurofighters recently A2A refuelled from an A400M. Nice capability to have...

TT,
did they ever resolve the sim para crossing problem ?

Stitchbitch wrote:

Quote:

Spanish Eurofighters recently A2A refuelled from an A400M. Nice capability to have...

Years ago I did a capability assessment; 1.5 hours on an AARA 1.0 hr flight time from the tanker base, landing with fuel equivalent to an hour's average flight time indicated that the A400M without CBTs would have an offload capability of only 35% of that of an A330MRTT on the same task. With 2 x CBT it would increase to about 49%.

So not the world's most capable tanker if bought solely for that role. Accept the limitations and use it in a true multi-role manner then it does indeed become a very useful aircraft - assuming that your air force isn't shackled by some monopolistic PFI contractual nonsense...

Re #324. The guys from the test 206 Sqn gave a lecture last night at the RAeS. They discussed the ASRA trial and the CDS trial in some detail. Big issues with the CARP and feeding data into the FMS.
At the end of the lecture the head of the RAeS flight test group made some quip at the need for carpenters. I had a chuckle to my self.
I have been following the Bzn twitter feed on this. Some of the comments really are funny.
AA62. No static line pers para, or anything bigger than 1 tons on 48” boards appears to be on the horizon any time soon. The guys appear to be working very hard to deliver a basic capability. Nothing like Airbus were promising before the aircraft was delivered.
Ed Strongman came to Cambridge a good few years back before the aircraft had been handed over. He was so optomistic about what was going to be delivered.

dragartist,
thanks for the reply. In my time we on the C130K never solved the paras 'kissing' behind the a/c on sim jumps. Did lots of trials on various 'wunder schemes' devised mainly by people who had never seen an op drop. I attended several meetings where the problem seemed to concern the RAF more than the army who generally regarded it as just another hazard associated with the job.
Nice video of the A22 drop.

Quote:

Did lots of trials on various 'wunder schemes' devised mainly by people who had never seen an op drop.

AA62: and therein lies Airbus’ problem - not prepared to listen to SMEs, they would rather try and implement a theoretical/engineering fix and wonder why their customer(s) get a tad angry with them.
Hope you are well, btw.

TT,
yes I am well thanks.So nothing changes but the date (and a/c type). Sometimes they have to admit that some of these historic problems can never be completely solved and that you need to learn to live with it if you want the complete package. But of course only after all the sensible options have been explored.
Best wishes
Bill

TT, your #333 is a little disengenuous. Airbus took on a couple of our senior MACR Loadmasters when it was still a paper aeroplane and they were building the mock up at Bremen. Some of these guys had been mentored by AA62. Lots of UK SMEs had an input including the AD and AFE RMs, QinetiQ trials Officers, JADTEU and the HOEU. These folks sat on a number of Working Groups. It certainly appears that the fruits of their labours and all those early morning starts to get to Bremen weeks on end have been wasted.
I do agree with you over the point that Airbus tried to implement many engineering fixes that even defied basic physics.

dragartist wrote:

Quote:

Airbus took on a couple of our senior MACR Loadmasters when it was still a paper aeroplane and they were building the mock up at Bremen.

You don't say, eh TT....;)

Hope you're keeping well these days?

dragartist,
I think you will find that TT was one of those ex RAF ALMs. And yes one or two were my ex students.

AA62, there are a lot of your ex students around still! hope you are well.

ksimboy,
greetings. Yes I am well even my hearing is holding up ! Glad to hear that many of my ex students are still with us. I could not have been too hard on them !