If we are playing that game,

"Deviation!" the lot of you!

I thought we were discussing the recent gearbox issue, not whether we should buy the damn@d thing or get something else, since we've already bought it and all? Or are we operating under a "benefit of the doubt"?

1 point to Heathrow Harry as we enjoyed his interjection. You have the topic, 25 seconds left...

Unfortunately everytime A400m comes up on this forum all we hear is the "if its not american its crap" brigade. Theres a lot of people who work very hard to keep them flying and whos jobs depend on it and its quite soul destroying hearing some of the uninformed rubbish that is written on here.

I think the A400M has a fine gearbox. Sadly, a few components in half of them (the gear boxes are handed and apparently only one hand has the problematic gears) apparently suffer from faulty heat treatment, limiting their life. Since its a service life issue not a safety of flight issue it won't affect deliveries, but that means an expensive fix later on. Who pays for that fix? I don't know, but if the contract was written correctly, Airbus/Safran will have to pay.