Three years late and billions over budget, the A400M, a military lift aircraft from Airbus, flew in, almost ready for delivery.
It's an interesting thing: twice the cost of the Lockheed Hercules that is its main competitor (and which first flew in the 1950s), or for 50% more money you could have a Boeing C17 Globemaster that carries twice the payload for twice the distance.
Is there any space in this market for the A400?
It appears there is: the Globemaster needs a proper, well-maintained airfield. It can't land anywhere else, and certainly not on the rough landing strips that suit the Hercules and the A400.
But the Hercules now has a problem: the sorts of missions carried out by armies today involve armoured personnel carriers. In the light of experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, these have acquired more and more armour and have become heavier and heavier.
In fact, they are now too heavy for a Hercules to carry them.
So, the only plane that can carry an APC and land on a rough strip is the shiny new A400 (whose propellors, incidentally, I think are particularly fine).
Either that's a lucky coincidence or brilliant planning.
I'm not expecting the UK's order for them to be significantly cut in the current review of defence spending.
3 comments:
If the GWML electrification doesn't happen, we know where the money went insted!
I'm surprised to see something so new fitted with propellors! Looks oddly retro.
I don't know the exact reasons, why turbo props are used for the A400M, but in the medium speed range turbo props are more fuel efficent than turbo fans available on the market afaik. You could improve on the turbo fan by enlarging the front fan (more or less to the size of the propellers as seen here) but those turbo fans would then be unwieldy below the wings (or you go for fans above the wings e.g. Antonov AN-72).
I remember reading about the efficiency advantages of turboprops over turbofans -- but apparently customers in civilian airliners prefer the turbofans, thinking them more modern/faster, which is why airlines specify them.
Can that really be true?!
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