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The first of 50 Airbus Military A400Ms for the French air force has been delivered, marking the first customer delivery of the new generation airlifter.
More than 700 people celebrated the delivery at a ceremony at the Airbus Military final assembly line at Seville, Spain on September 30.
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The first French air force aircraft, the first of 50 on order, will be based at Orleans – Bricy Air Base and initially used for training before being deployed on military and humanitarian missions.
A total of 174 A400Ms are on order
Andrew McLaughlin
says:Great to see this new gen airlifter finally enter service. Hope it can put its past development troubles behind it and enjoy a long and fruitful service career.
John N
says:Andrew,
Agree totally, and lets hope too that Airbus Military also gets some fresh orders, and maybe they will win more with the C-17 winding up it’s production run.
I hope I’m wrong, but personally I think the biggest challenge the A400M faces now is the global economic situation, reduced defence spending, the lack of new orders and also the reduction of fleet sizes by some of it’s European customers that will see Germany and Spain for example, ‘sell off’ 26 new unwanted airframes that are now above their requirements.
No doubt those 26 excess airframes will find new homes, but it doesn’t really help grow the overall production numbers which currently stands at 174.
Anyway, time will tell!
Cheers,
John N
Dane
says:I think the A-400 has entered the market at the right time. By the time the Atlas has matured, some countries might be looking at suitable and competitive replacements for the C-130J or earlier models of the Herc. If Airbus Military can play their cards right, they might be able to bag a number of orders from non-European countries