EADS slumps to loss as A400 fails to takeoff

The Telegraph ^ | 3/9/2010

[knarf]

World trade should be you buy our Chevy’s and we’ll buy your Telefunken ... not go into partnership and combine the two.

[ntmxx]

For some reason reminds me of a Flying Coffin!

[Paleo Conservative]

How much would a realistically priced A400M cost compared to a C-17?

[Spktyr]

No comparison. The A400M is a bit bigger than a C-130J, but smaller than the C-17 by a significant margin.

[bruinbirdman]

Manufacturing by committee: Germany, France, Spain, Italy.

UK finally sold out of EADS?

yitbos

[Tainan]

C-17 has it beat in load capacity.
C-130J has it beat in configuration flexibility and maintenance/parts readiness.
They both have it beat in a/c availability.
Heck, I think they both have it also beat in unimproved runway landing/take-off ability.

The A400M is an a/c built for political reasons by committees that could not agree on the final product and did not speak the same language.

[PittsburghAfterDark]

I really was wondering why they would put so much money into a plane that competed with the C-130.

I know the thing is still in production and it’s as mature an aviation platform that exists.

[Spktyr]

The C-130J looks the same as the older variants, but it’s really almost an all new aircraft that just happens to look the same. They have all new engines, props, avionics and wings, for starters.

[Spktyr]

Forgot to mention: the new J-model has 40% greater range, 21% higher maximum speed, and 41% shorter take-off distance than the earlier E/H models.

And they even figured out how to make a tanker version that can provide ground support with a 30mm cannon, Hellfires, and laser/GPS guided munitions. Talk about loiter time.

[Spktyr]

The funny part is that Lockheed was involved early on with the A400M project, got fed up with the ‘design-by-committee-but-please-make-it-a-jobs-program-too’ so they bailed out, went home, and thoroughly modernized the C-130 instead. The C-130J-30 comes within a hair of all the capabilities of the larger A400M, and is going to be cheaper.

[PittsburghAfterDark]

I’m sure the C-130J is completely different from the originals built in the 50’s except cosmetically.

My point is why would you want to get into competing with the most universal military cargo carrier ever made? You’re trying to compete against nearly 60 years of design/material/structural/engineering improvements. The aircraft has depots of spare parts all over the world to boot.

Seems to me this effort did nothing but burn up billions of Euros that will never be recoupled.

[Spktyr]

EADS is nothing but a jobs program. Does that help?

[Haiku Guy]

And they even figured out how to make a tanker version that can provide ground support with a 30mm cannon, Hellfires, and laser/GPS guided munitions. Talk about loiter time.

Like nuclear submarines. The limiting factor would be the food supply. Or maybe TBMO...

[ricks_place]

Couldn’t the Euros kick in another subsidy for their supranational champion.

[RayChuang88]

At the rate things are going the Europeans ought to seriously look at dropping the A400M and just buy 180 C-17's built to European specifications (e.g., drogue-and-probe in-flight refueling and Rolls-Royce RB.211-535E4 engines). After all, the Royal Air Force "bit the bullet" and bought the CFM56-powered E-3 Sentry when the BAe Nimrod AEW. 3 proved to be unworkable.

[onedoug]

And it’s tail is still similar to the old Hughes Hercules.

[cmdr straker]

The Brits and Nato have already bought standard C-17’s. so have the Ausies and Canada.

[Paleo Conservative]

At the rate things are going the Europeans ought to seriously look at dropping the A400M and just buy 180 C-17's built to European specifications

Of course with an order that big, it would make sense for Boeing to also develop a stretched, higher gross weight, longer ranged version that could be used to replace the C-5A's.

[hattend]

bump