PARIS: Europe’s A400M military transport plane project is on course for first flight in early 2008 but builder Airbus Military says structural problems will force the re-manufacture of a part linking its hefty engines to their gearboxes.
“It’s a setback and something we have to fix,” Juan Carlos Martinez Saiz, Airbus Military executive vice president for military programmes, told reporters in comments embargoed for publication yesterday.
He said engine testing would not be affected, nor flight tests or deliveries, but he acknowledged the problem had been a “surprise”.
“What happens in the middle is less important than delivering on time,” Saiz said, adding structural problems were found in the linkage and a redesigned part was being manufactured.
The A400M is an 18bn-euro project to provide Europe with a large transport plane that can fly troops and equipment into conflict zones or assist in humanitarian missions. Germany, France, Spain and Britain are lined up as its biggest customers.
Its four turboprop engines are among the largest ever built.
Executives at Airbus parent firm Eads said in March that the formal start of the A400M final assembly process would be delayed by up to three months but first deliveries to the French air force in October 2009 would remain as scheduled.
The project spent two decades in planning as disputes over funding stalled its launch but as first flight and first deliveries draw near, executives are hopeful it will carve out a niche in the global market.
Richard Thompson, a senior vice president at Airbus Military, said the company still sees a market for almost 400 such planes.
The project already has 192 orders including 180 from the seven launch nations—Germany, France, Spain, the UK, Turkey, Belgium and Luxembourg — as well as eight from South Africa and four from Malaysia.
“We’re sticking to our prediction of 200 above the 192,” Thompson said. “The contract will be profitable at the end of the day.”
He said one approach to selling the planes could involve Nato countries in Europe without large defence budgets of their own pooling funds to buy on a fractional ownership basis.
The European plane’s development is being closely watched by the industry partly because of technology which is expected to feed into advances in Airbus airliners.
The A400M is made of 30 to 40% advanced composite materials, for example, a level far higher than current Airbus airliners.
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