RAF's new military airlifter finally lumbers into the air

European National Defence

Now a serious post: To those who can see through the free-enterprise-fixes-every-problem-bullshit ideology I suggest the following way of thinking:

U.S. wealth and might rests mainly on military projects developing leading-edge technology that would never have been developed in the commercial world which is so preoccupied with quick return on investment. Even less in the financial world, which is more interested in alchemy and perpetuum mobiles.

All those huge U.S. government defence projects resulted in a vast array of top-end technology which would one way or the other find its way into the commercial world. Can we imagine things like the Silicon Valley, Hewlett-Packard, Microwave technology, jet airliners and the Transistor without defence projects ? I cannot.

Consequently, Europe should spend all its defence money on common defense research and development and production projects. All the skills and technology acquired thereby will boost our commercial industry for decades to come. Every aerospace R&D engineer effectively feeds 100 people doing all sorts of boring service, finance, IT and gastronomic jobs.

It might offend you IT people here, but finance and its IT is more a cancer than a value-creating thing lately. I know this runs directly against the common way of thinking promoted by the finance sector and its prophets in the media and literature, but maybe it is finally time to question their economic model ?

Even if we start to compare the costs of the C130 or C17 programs with the 20 billion initially projected for the A400M program, this is a true bargain. We Europeans must know how to catch fish on our own, instead of waiting until we are fed by the Americans. But I forgot the epic petty infights of London money against Paris money against Madrid money against Frankfurt money against Turin money, against...... Mr Page is simply playing the idiot for the American Game Of Divide And Conquer.

I salute EADS for a successful milestone in a project that must make every sensible European proud. Well done, boys and girls !

EPIC FAIL?

15 billion euros spent and a resulting product is a shitty plane, inferior to its american and russian/ukrainian counterparts, well done.. oh and it took like 20 years to design/construct..

Six figure payoff?

"Never mind that, as is usual in these cases, we could almost certainly give every sacked British worker a six- or even seven-figure payoff"

Someone must have been bottom of the economics class - if we hand a big pile of money over to Uncle Sam for the alternative it won't be floating around our economy, therefore a whole load of taxable transactions won't be occuring and so UK.Gov won't have money to make the payoffs, so even less money runs around and fewer transactions result in less tax so the UK.Gov has to make more cuts, resulting in fewer transactions....ad nauseum all at a time when we are trying to pull out of recession!

Perhaps we should all club together and buy Lewis a one way ticket to the USofA since he's such a fan!

Paris 'cos she probably understands more than LP.

Details Of Workshare

Can be downloaded from

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/fla/

As I wrote before, this project is essential in strengthening the engineering skills of Europe, which will eventually filter into other industries such as the automotive, railway, chemical, metals and machine tool engineering. The automotive industry is the backbone of the German and French economy and thereby the backbone of european industry in general.

Finance without real-world businesses is just an empty shell and projects like this ensure that the meat of the european economy stays healthy.

If you want to see what happens if your country depends solely on U.S. weapons imports, look at Poland and the baltic states. They can barely afford about 50 F16s and some Mig29s - they are currently scared to hell by Russia. I bet the Polish would be happy if they just had the ability to build their own Tornado fighters. But even the best printing press and the smartest bankers don't build a single airplane.

Carbon Wings and more

Considering that the British Workshare entails the latest in aerospace materials, it is sad to see such negative comments here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/bristol/somerset/7473838.stm

These materials save 20 percent fuel consumption on the A400M as compared to full-metal wings. Probably this material will play a key role in the next generation of Airbus, BAE and EADS wings and fuselages.

Also, the car and railway industry will surely benefit from this strong and light materials. Saving weight also means saving fuel consumption in the automotive industry. Many other applications could benefit, including (motor-)bikes, satellites and rockets, bridges, maybe even mundane things like ladders for the fire brigade. So this project clearly is worth the money spent, as part of industrial policy in general, if we are to stay relevant as compared to China, India, the U.S. and Brazil.

Surely the most powerful turboprop engine of the West will boost all kinds of technologies and manufacturing processes, especially in high-temperature materials. Also, the engine control software was very complex and will give european engineers critical exposure to creating leading edge systems.

Having this toolbox of technologies inside EADS and BAE will enable us to also create a transport craft that can easily outdo the C17 on all parameters. It would just be unrealistic to expect the first transport aircraft made by Airbus/ÈADS to beat the much bigger U.S. programs in terms of absolute performance. But as we demonstrated with the A380 we can eventually surpass the big U.S. companies. Just put 6 RR Trent 900 on a the next and bigger version of the A400M and that will let the Russian and U.S. planes look like midgets.

The key to this is to stop thinking in national egoisms and think of Europe as a common political and military entity. The best thing would be a European Airlift Command that provides airlift services to all of Europe's armed forces just like the U.S. Military Airlift Command.

wow

It's great to see the great UK isn't so good or smart at stuff sometimes, either.

Reminds me of a recent post on the reg about an american stealth figher losing to..what was it?

And oh, the ribbing us U.S. folks took....even though that story was misquoted. ;)

Love you Brits...can't wait to hear more about how us yanks are so religiously uneducated, pornographically inept, our health care system that should be free for all of our citizens, how our military is too expensive, our conservativism is rediculous...etc...etc...etc...ad nauseum.

Also remember...most of us in the U.S. love our brit counterparts on the other side of the pond....don't take my light pokes as an attack...what goes around, comes around. :)

Now it's your turn for the fun. :)

Poke away!

Turboprop == Tactical

The A400M is a top-notch performer on landing, survivability & speed:

The Jet engines of the C17 may draw in to them:

stones in the desert,

Flora & Fauna in Africa

and SAM in the front angle.

Not so Turboprops.

For a Very-Wide-body straight-wings turboprop configuration,

the A400M holds a cruise-speed record of 780kmh, much better than the C130J,

slightly above the 770kmh of the Narrow-body, swept-wing

though 40% heavier and 30% more powerful Tu-114m

which is equipped with very-noisy contra-rotating propellers(for each engine).

6% under the C17 (Jet) @ 830kmh

15% under the slender-slim Tu-95 turboprop bomber @ 920kmh

A400M manufacturing video

If you want to know what makes the difference between the Third World and Europe, look at this film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7nb8izsQY4

The economic power of Europe and America comes from the black magic that makes complex systems like the A400M possible. The arab world has a large number of traders and beancounters, so if "free enterprise" were the main source of our wealth, Cairo should be the center of the world's economy. Nope, it's engineers and technicians making machines that have unique capabilities that ultimately make us so wealthy - whatever the "thought leaders" at the Financial Times, NY Times or The Economist claim.

Financial trickery only works a certain amount of time and then everybody realizes the emperor is without clothes.

Europes C5 Galaxy

The C5 was also desinged as a long haul heavy lifter. It took a very long time to develop and had weight and manufacturing issues. Ironcally a key objective was that it was designed to land big loads near the front line (hence its complex weight spreading undercarriage design)

When deployed it turned out that it was too expensive and procured in too small a number to risk loosing one.

Regarding carbon fibres use outside the miltary. How well has that worked exactly? Bearing in mind some facts.

Its made by burning precursor carbon materials in a *very* controlled way at temperatures int he 1000s of C. The raw fibre is then coated in some complex organic sizes then embedded in some complex organic resins.

Not sounding exaclty carbon neutral, is it?

Unless you have a *very* good understanding of what directions stresses will come in either your layoup will be sub optimal (heavier than needed) or you will have to add patches to build up the structure (adding weight). I wonder if this is part of the 12 tonne performance shortfall.

Impact testing by NASA showed it was possible for compsite structures to loose 30% of their strength*without* visible signs of damage.

So plenty of opportunities to sell follow on maintenance and repair work contracts.

And of course there are the little issues of static electricity in dry, hot climates or lighting.

Automated layup may have lowered the mfg costs some but the fact you have to do layoup in the first place is the problem. It's too time consuming for high volume production for things like car and train bodies. OTOH Friction stir welding of aluminium and steel train and ship bodies is already in farily common use across Europe. Magnesium castings allow multiple original parts to become 1 single casting may ultimately be more valuable in production terms.

@John Smith 19

Indeed new technologies typically have new problems. The first jet engines surely were less reliable than the piston engines of that time. Nevertheless, our wealth clearly depends on technology, as we need some kind of "black magic product" as an exchange for oil, ore, wood, cacao and lots of other raw materials from other continents. So the "technology pipeline" must be sustained if we want to preserve our wealth.

And even if we find out that metal wings are indeed more economical, this project was worth trying out, as the weight savings of carbon are significant. One can argue all the time about the details of such projects, but I think it indisputable that our wealth ultimately depends on such big R&D efforts. Eastern Europe is exactly in such a dire state because they believed in the free-enterprise-fixes-everything kool-aid that they could read in those english-language newspapers.

If you need to find the money for the A400M, just cut all NHS wages by 20 percent and get a handle on the City Bankers. The latter are the source of the current crisis and they absolutely don't know how to fix it. I guess you need a Tory government to do that, though. Social democrats believe in money, at the core of their heart, so they are clearly unable to think non-monetarily.

Airbus Military Web Site Upgraded, Air Tanker capability

Now they have a much better web presentation with lots of videos, images and information online:

http://www.airbusmilitary.com/

Another strong argument for the A400M is the versatility. It is not just a tactical STOL lifter like the C130, but can also do refueling of Eurofighter and other fast and slow aircraft and helicopters. All very economical, because it is a turboprop and at a quite long range and nearly as fast OPTEMPO as a jet tanker.

It could even be argued that the A400M has a very unique ability to refuel fighters on the front line from oil reservois that have only a short, improvised airstrip. This double capability makes this aircraft a very valuable resource for european air forces and armies.

The C130 is very slow and considerably smaller in this respect.