92 RAF CENTENARY CELEBRATION PATROLLERS AND AIRLIFTERS
Top rightAIRBUS
A400M AT
2014 TO PRESENT
A400M ATLAS
W
hile the Lockheed C-130
Hercules continues to
serve the RAF with
distinction, the Future Large Aircraft
(FLA) programme was launched in
1982 to create a new generation of
military transport.
The Future International Military
Airlifter (FIMA) group was set up
by Aérospatiale, British Aerospace
(BAe), Lockheed, and Messerschmitt-
Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) to develop a
replacement for the C-130 Hercules
and C-160 Transall, but the various
requirements of different air arms
(and complicated international
politics) slowed its progress. In 1989
Lockheed left to develop its upgraded
C-130J Super Hercules and was
replaced in the syndicate by Italy’s
Alenia and Spain’s CASA.
In 1993 a new group was formed
to meet the requirements of the air
forces of Belgium, France, Germany,
Spain, Turkey and the UK. The new
aircraft was planned as a replacement
for both Hercules and C-160 and was
to be a joint project shared between
seven nations – although Italy soon
withdrew from the programme.The new design was positioned
as an intermediate-sized aircraft
between the Lockheed C-130 and
the jet-powered Boeing C-17. Power
was originally to come from the
SNECMA M138 turboprop, but a
new request for proposal (RFP) in
2002 resulted in applications from
Pratt & Whitney Canada (with the
PW180) and Europrop International.
The latter proposed a new design,
dubbed the TP400-D6 and this was
chosen to power the aircraft in
May 2003.
Airbus Military – the Madrid-based
subsidiary of Airbus Industries,
assumed management of the project
with design and construction work
to be shared between BAE Systems
(UK), EADS (Germany, France
and Spain), Flabel (Belgium) and
Tusas Aerospace Industries (Turkey).
Final assembly would take place in
Seville, Spain. South Africa joined the
partnership in April 2005, receiving a
contract for fuselage components.
The aircraft, which was rebranded
as the Airbus A400M, was envisaged
to substantially increase the range
of earlier transporters as well asdoubling the cargo carrying capacity- both for payload and volume.
The cargo hold itself is 58ft 1in
(17.70m) long, 13ft 1in (3.99m)
wide and 12ft 7in (3.84m) tall and
can accommodate up to 81,600lb
(37,014kg) of freight. It can also be
configured as a pure cargo transport
or troop carrier (or combinations
thereof ) as well as for casualty
evacuation. An optional hose-and-
drogue refuelling system can also
be fitted.
TECHNOLOGY
From the outset the A400M was
designed to operate from short,
unprepared airstrips and even at
maximum take-off weight the aircraft
can get airborne from a 3,215ft
(980m) runway and land on a
2,526ft (770m) strip. This is helped
by the computerised fly-by-wire
flight control system, which enables
the crew to operate to the edge of the
flight envelope with full protection.
Echoing other Airbus aircraft, the
A400M has a full glass cockpit and
side stick controllers – in fact most of
the aircraft systems are based on those1918 2018