Airbus: We'll cancel crap A400M unless we get more £££

"Come on politicians - are you listening?"

bull horn right next to them and they'll say what was that again?

offer them a couple of million of the local currency and they will probably say ok.

Just buy american for F*** sake

This is one massive cock up on airbuses part, why should we pay for it? i say cancel the order and get some planes from the yanks before everyone else does, that way we will be first in line!

Politicians & listening

Two words that can never go together.

Balance required

Lots of negative comments about the A400M :

"But a C-17, despite being cheaper, is much bigger and carries twice or more what an A400M can."

"Thus the real cost per plane would be £170m - more than twice what a vastly bigger and better C-17 costs."

BUT - what are the merits of the more modern A400M ? There must be some surely ?

"A new, upgraded Hercules C-130J costs $75m these days, according to those who should know: say £50m tops, at current rates. You could get at least three of them for the price of one A400M."

OK - but what is the cost of 3 pilots and associated running costs of 3 planes versus 1 ?

I'm sure Lewis is right and that talking the negotiating stance of the Germans is correct - after all, had Airbus made a budget miscalculation in their favour there is no chance any nation would be offered a rebate. However, there seems to be a bias, also in previous articles, in favour of US made aircraft and some excellent points in the article might be ignored (i.e. politicians will not listen) because of perceived anti British manufacturing bias.

Economics of politics

Oh, the joys of being a member of the EU and, for political reasons, having to buy overpriced crap from our neighbours, rather that stuff that actually works...

wah wah wah we won't make a profit

The problem is that the EU continues to subsidise Airbus to this extent. In any other business (well, most normal ones) if a supplier screws up and then says 'we want more money, we won't make a profit', the usual response is "ah boo hoo, don't screw it up next time". With Airbus, the EU's standard response is 'OK, here's more cash, please make a profit'. Where's the business, exactly?

Just do it

I may be a yank but I will comment on what I have seen. I have worked on C130E/H models. The later H's were a dream maintenance was fairly easy and the great thing being they required almost no training from the E models. The J's have a few differences but they are basically the same plane. For that alone you will save tons of money on maintenance training and more so because there are already some in the british fleet. C-17s I have been told by collegues are equally reliable and modern. I dont see how any beancounter could take a known platform such as the C-17 and C130Js and justify that against an unknown airframe with unknown problems requiring a lot of training and support. For the price of one A400 you can get pretty close to buying a C-17 and 2 C130's with minimal training and the ability to be supported by other air forces when needed (which can be a life saver from personal experience). It seems like a no brainer to me.

The A400M has always been a costly case of Europork

The A400M has always been a case of Europork, look at the engine where the Airbus selection of P&W Canada (a company with decades of experience with turbo-props) was over-ruled and a European consortium given the work. The Germans wanted to buy westernised Antonov aircraft, the British military wanted a mix of C-17s and C-130s. The only reason for the UK buying the A400M in the first place was to be able to show that it was an active member of the European project, keeping the likes of France happy.

One other issue is that the C130J is c**p compared to the earlier C130K in UK service (the load system doesn't work, more complex engines don't give the fuel efficiency promised because Herks never fly high enough, you can't drop paratroops from them, etc) so if the A400M is worse again that really is not good.

Hang on

[...]the aircrew ratio will need to take full account of the strategic role[...]

I thought the whole point of the A400M was that is was to provide tactical arlift not strategic?

Sure lets play Top Trumps

We can all play that game Mr Page, Lets see I have a Harrier you have a Mirage, Mirage Faster you win. Its a pity that wars cannot be fought this way it would make life so much simpler.

Of course you miss a few points out. Firstly comparing a C-17 and the A400-M is pretty disingenuous since they are designed for different jobs. For same reason we do not all fly on Jumbo jets.

A better comparison would be the Hercules 130-J. You make the point that the A400-M only carries 50% more payload for 3 times the cost. Ignoring the fact the A400M flies faster and farther personally I would thought it would be pretty cost effective to transport the same amount of supplies into a warzone with only 2/3 of the flights so reducing the number of possible targets.

What this article misses

Is that the C17s that we have rented for £200m actually come with a bunch of restrictions which limit what we can put on board, and which airfields we can bring them in to. If we actually buy them, at the 2007 cost, they are about $218m, a lot more than the £70m that Lewis has made up in his article. Also, as plenty of other people point out, the A400M is designed to fulfill a more tactical role than the C17. Actually what we should be doing is going out and buying a bunch of Antonovs since they are bigger than the C17, more effective than the C17 and cheaper than the C17. Then spending the rest of the money you've saved by binning A400m on C130Js. There are some problems though. The larger cargo bay of the A400M has been designed to allow you to ship certain types of gear into rough fields that you can't fit in a C130J (for example certain self-propelled artillery, or 2 land-rovers side by side). We would lose that capability if we completely drop the A400M, although that might be an acceptable compromise to some. Heavy lift helicopters can't carry everything an A400M can, so this would mean having less kit at FOBs than possible with the A400M.

Why oh why

It depresses me no end that Britain cannot design and build a 4 engine propellor driven cargo plane. We might as well dust off the plans for the Bristol Super freighter or something similar.

Who didn't expect this

"if it is delivered at the agreed price"

I said we should buy American rather than European

The American is already a proven product

This is a no brainer, both the C130 and the C-117 are well proven products and the A400M is nothing more than a massive cockup, cut your losses, the solution is simple...LEASE the American planes!

"Come on politicians - are you listening???"

What an oxymoronic question.

Now, if you'd asked whether they were lying...

In fight refuelling? Auto pilot?

I'm not sure what's with this 3 sets of aircrew business.

The A400m does not *have* in flight refuelling?

Personally I think Airbus has been an impressive piece of *civillian* European co-operation.

I believe it's now time it stands on its own 2 feet. If they cannot make a profit then they *should* walk away from the deal. That is what *real* commercial companies do or work the deal and learn from the mistakes they made when dealing with *multiple* defense ministries across Europe. That fact (I suspect) has prved more troublesome that *all the worlds airlines put together.

More Research Next Time Please

Where does Mr Page get his figures from? Or rather, why only consult those who should know for one figure and make the rest up?

The cost of a C-17 is not £70 million but more like £130-150 million and climbing, EXCLUDING services. Through-life costs should be higher than A400M because it is a larger jet powered aircraft that burns more fuel. Also costs more to maintain unless the A400M low-maintenance composite concept does not work out. Saving grace is that the C-17 costs are now well understood, while the exact A400M operating costs remain to be validated in practice.

The idea was that A400M will have much bigger payload capacity and flexibility plus range and speed over C-130 (and particularly the smaller C.160 Transall used by France/Germany/Turkey) with similar ability to go into small unimproved airfields but cost less to acquire and operate than larger aircraft like C-17. Plus it can do some aerial refuelling work. As cost increases the range where this equation still works out is narrowing, but is probably still feasible. And the UK is making components and thus generating revenue/taxes/jobs from every A400M sold. On the American aircraft? Not so much (C-130 engines and some flight software on C-17, both in US subsidiaries).

How about digging through the archives and finding the A400M partners (people/countries) who insisted on developing the engines from scratch rather than use something off the shelf from Canada and present them with the lion share for the cost overrun? And the rest... well, name a large procurement project in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy etc that has not run over budget recently. The C-17 project was in a heap of trouble back in the 90s because of cost overruns and performance issues also. See how that turned out.

White Flag Shocker

"France has stated that the customers should simply bite the pillow set out for them and pay more for their planes."

Not like the French Military to Surrender to the demands of "the man"

sod that...

why not buy the russian heavy lifters , i mean they are huge and can piss all over the competition and are probably cheaper as well.

simply bite the pillow

Yup, you're getting it you-know-where, and we don't want to hear to screaming about it.

Go live in America if you like their kit so much!

Yet again a mightly slagging off of non-'merkin products. Okay so I have benefitted from the A400M project thus I can hardly be impartial, but if we took LPs take all the while we would never have motorised transport let alone aircraft, hey the horse and cart does a mighty fine job at a considerably lower buy price and operating cost than these new fangled mechanical contrivances! The fact is that the A400M will fill the role of the C130, plus provide extra capabilities towards the C17 mark and performance within a single airframe that would not be practical or economical using multiple C130s/C17s and a big bonus - it ain't yankee!

Interesting...

In the commercial sector, where late and over budget leaves you dead in the water (Kind of gives you a focus...), Airbus seem to be managing ok (decent order book, and they managed the A380, which was late, but nowhere near as late as the 787).

What makes a military transport plane soooo much harder than a commercial plane?

Yes they have to perform, but the A380 was a big step, too.

Could the difficulty be the customers have deeper pockets, longer fuses... and no clue?

Panavia Tornado again

It seems the EU never learns. We have been through this so many times: the Concorde, the Tornado, the Typhoon, any Airbus plane. Take away the subsidies and none of these projects would have taken flight let alone gone into production.

While an Antonov might be cheaper, it will lack commonality with other NATO partners in Afghanistan. Getting spare parts could be crippling. Of course there is the idea that the A400M is more of a tactical airlifter than a C-17; however, there is a C-17 proposal to turn the C-17 into more of a tactical airlifter than it already is. Now add the fact that a C-17 can carry any Main Battle Tank to a forward operating base and this becomes a no-brainer.

Latest generation C-130s get the job done with all the bells and whistles while fully meeting the tactical airlift need. Bringing up the outsize cargo argument is a point to be sure, but usually not vital.

One thing that everyone is forgetting

is that the role of a "Tactical" lift aircraft is to fly into a danger area, drop like a stone to the runway, unload as much cargo as feasibly possible and get the hell out before being shot out of the sky by the nearest militant carrying a MANPADS (Man Portable Air Defence System) and considering how prolific MANPADS and rocket propelled grenade launchers are this is a big requirement.

The A400M is designed as a Tactical lift aircraft so making any comparison to the C17 Strategic Lifter is completely disingenous.

Making the direct comparison to the C130 then the A400M comes out superbly from an operational point of view. Its faster with a higher flight ceiling (so it can get to its destination faster then the C130 and at a height which will take it out of range of all but the most advanced SAM systems), it can land and take off on unprepared and very short runways (same as the C130 and if im not mistaken shortfield performance is even better in this than C130 in this regard) AND it can carry 50% more then the C130. Just looking at it in that regard you have an aircraft which severely outstrips its competitor in all the ways that those planning the mission are interested in.

On top of that it has a few special neat tricks (like inflight refuelling of fighters, and a range which means it can help out on shorter strategic lift routes) and it means you have an aircraft thats versatile and is unlikely to spend large amounts of time waiting for a tactical lift job to come up.

OK the cost at present is high, but i would question some of LP's figures - and making any sort of claim about inservice costs when the aircraft has never been flown in anger before is a bit ridiculous.

My final question for you all is since when did military items begin being purchased based on price rather then ability/survivability? If that were the case the Harrier would never have been developed and in fact why have any new aircraft/ship/tank the olds ones are known and cheap and parts are available - surely there better options then developing something new and more capable...

Just one problem - it's not crap.

It might be late and over budget, but if it performs as the manufacturer promises (and they underrated the A380) it'll be worth it in the long run.

Regarding the comment about Airbus' commercial orderbook being run in more prompt and orderly fashion, well, they're not dealing with governments to the same extent. The A400 is being sold at an agreed price that may actually be undervalued, and they're worried about losing money on it.

Time to shaft airbus good and proper

There's no way that they should let airbus get away with this. It's time to shaft one of the big suppliers in as painful a way as possible - liquidated damages (I expect they'll be in the contract but I know a man who can can confirm), unofficial ban from future contracts ('of course we will be following EU procurement regs, we will evaluate your bid in the same way, it's just you'll always lose), the whole 9 yards

Thanks to political interference the big manufactures think they can get away with murder. The poor buggers in MoD commercial know what to do for te best but often get shafted from above, leading to BAe et al thinking no matter what the problem, Govt will never invoke all of the nasty clauses in the contracts to the full effect.

Even if it causes a few more costs for this contract, a healthly shafting of a big supplier will provide significant savings in the future. A nice bankrupcy will be useful 'pour encourager les autres'.

As a side note, BAe even have the cheek to place a really big poster proclaiming them a UK firm in Westminster tube station just above the esclators for the Jubilee line - sub text for any MPs going past: 'Remember who we are and the jobs we have in marginal constituencies'.

BAe? Who?

"... leading to BAe et al thinking no matter what the problem... "

"... BAe even have the cheek ... "

BAe? Who?

oh you mean British Aerospace? Sorry mate they don't exist any more.

If you are going to slag off a company then please try to use their actual name, not a name you picked up 20 years ago.

The best savings will be made when customers stop changing their requirements every 5 minutes. Pick an overspent project that hasn't seen significant requirements creep.

Didn't Mel Brooks Already Do This Joke?

Is Airbus paying homage to Blazing Saddles, where the sheriff takes himself hostage before the crowd, threatens to kill himself, and the townsfolk are so gullible that they believe him?