Seen plenty in news clips and so on....

Around 1000 - 1200 miles dependant upon destination, so easily achievable by Albert.

Possibly much more than you might imagine but you wouldn’t necessarily have heard about it...!

Any plans to make an A400M based gunship? Serious question. I know that the USAF AC130 gunships have proved invaluable in both Iraq and Afghanistan for the US military (and often called in to help other allied troops).

I sincerely doubt it, an expensive bit of kit to have orbiting over the bad guys at a low level.

We were once asked by the Yanks if we could orbit over an Afghan village pretending to be a gunship ‘for effect’ as theirs was u/s. When asked what the problem with it was they replied, ‘it got shot to sh*t over that village last night’.

The request was declined!

oh Jesus, can you imagine how the UK MAA would react to fitting anything dangerous to a military aircraft?

BTW, if Wiki is to be believed the first flight of the Hercules was 67 years ago yesterday 23rd Aug 54. They'll be around for a while yet.

This is the crux of why people who are in the know are upset.

The A400M is really good at what people think the C130 does, but funnily enough the operators of Albert only spend a tiny proportion of their time doing those particular things. To the people who think you can just borrow specialist TacAT capability on demand, google ‘The SOF Truths’

Yep theres been australian one doing shuttle runs between afghanistan and UAE daily

To be honest, the C-130J v. A400M arguments are very much like the C-130K v. C-130J arguments that appeared in this very forum when the J was shiny and new. I suspect that one day there will be an A400M v. whatever argument which will say exactly the same things all over again.

Certainly I have seen various C130s operating between UAE/Oman? and Kabul on FR24. The first was a US Navy one on that first manic weekend. Pity they don't seem be able to use airfields in Turkey or Pakistan like Turkish A400s do...
mmitch.

Martin, I did partake of that discussion and was very much on the side of the J as I was flying it then but I had also flown the K so I was coming at it from an informed position; many of the J’s detractors were not.

I have also flown the A400M and while it’s a great strat ac it has some serious limitations that in my opinion will make it struggle to takeover from the J, particularly in the Tac role. Again I’m coming hopefully from an informed position.

Yes a host of "British" airliners are being used in the airbridge - NOT
Portuguese, Spanish, Maltese and Ethiopian aircraft are currently chartered !!!!!

As the current ACAS(Strategy) is an ex-trucky (AVM Simon Edwards) there is an informed voice at the top table.

Turkey is in the process of modernizing the avionics of 19 C-130Bs and Es which will continue to operate along side its A400Ms and CN-235s.

Erdoğan's policies are about 'Making Turkey Great (and Islamic) Again' and he would clearly cut ties to NATO and particularly the US, if he no longer saw them as necessary. According to the pro-government Daily Sabah he appears to be open to friendly relations with the Taliban. Adding them to friendships with other unsavoury governments. Pakistan is clearly happy with the change (and not just the military); to quote The Guardian from last week: 'In Pakistan – long accused of aiding the Afghan Taliban – the prime minister, Imran Khan, said the Taliban had “broken the chains of mental slavery in Afghanistan”. The leader of a key religious political party said the “Taliban has freed their country from superpowers”.'

https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/...in-afghanistan

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ce-afghanistan
.

Well the RAF did have a 'gunship' role for the 'K' as I described in the Hercules thread.

Talking about fragility and the lack of capacity, has ZM409 flown since it's bird strike 14 months ago? If not, are there plans for it to fly again or could it be used to provide for the A400s stored without engines at the end of Burford Road?
Freeman

"he would clearly cut ties to NATO and particularly the US, if he no longer saw them as necessary."

TBH there are quite a few NATO members who would do the same :( - it's the "necessary" that keeps them in

Around 11pm UK time last night I noticed a RAF C130J leaving Afghanistan over Pakistan. Given that "the final UK troops, diplomats and officials have left Kabul", I wonder if it was the final flight.

Sssssh! Don't mention That C130J, you maybe ought not to have spotted it.