Is it time to pull the plug from the troubled A400M transport program?
Some are considering it. This program is getting ugly quick and with the global financial meltdown, ailing programs are likely to get taken to the pound and put to sleep.
- “Under the current conditions we cannot build the plane,” Enders told Spiegel Online in an interview on Sunday, adding it would be better to make a painful break than draw out the agony.” -
H/T- DS
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Oh well,the Show goes go….
I think the problems are simple enough. A) they set overly ambitious fuel-consumption requirements; and B) they let the engine be designed and built by a Eurocommittee for political reasons.The first problem required that the developers reinvent the wheel, which has been the bane and delight of military users since the 1930s. Sometimes they really do reinvent the wheel, but they often end up reinventing the block instead.The second problem is peculiar to Europe and it’s had a hand in nearly every “joint” procurement fiasco. Too many hands spoiling the soup, each one backed by powerful politicians who don’t really give a damn about cost or operational requirements as long as they can use the program to get themselves reelected. Actually, that’s a problem everywhere, but Europe likes to highlight it in advance by putting “Euro” in front of everything. Thus, anyone who saw the words “Europrop International” had an inkling from the outset that things were going to go badly.
No one is more delighted about this than LockMart. They’ve probably got visions of < HREF="http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/09/22/316314/picture-lockheed-martin-unveils-wider-larger-c-130xl-to-fight.html" REL="nofollow">C-130 XL’s<> in various European colors right now.
“By the time the lifting capacity is down to 22 tons, we could simply rename it the Euro-Hercules … the A130M. Double the price, and sell less for more … the European way!”
Had this been an American project, the contractor would have said “give us more money and we WILL make it work,” never mind how sugar-coated that claim would be. No doubt that the demise of A400M will mean market opportunities for Boeing (C17) and Lockheed (C130), but let’s count how many US defense projects that run grossly behind schedule and over budget, shall we? Europe’s missteps pale compared to American free-market blunders.At very least, i give EADS the credible for such integrity and disciplined entrepreneurship. Net result: $100 million goes a lot further in European defense industry than it would in the US.
I don’t get it…at first glance, it looks like a C 141 re-done as a prop job.
At first glance C17 looks like a C5 on diet and Herc-J a legacy C130 with different < HREF="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Hercules.propeller.arp.jpg" REL="nofollow">prop<>….The magic is in the details, Warthog.
@first Anonymous:“The second problem is peculiar to Europe and it’s had a hand in nearly every “joint” procurement fiasco. Too many hands spoiling the soup, each one backed by powerful politicians who don’t really give a damn about cost or operational requirements as long as they can use the program to get themselves reelected.”What’s so especially European about that?Major U.S. arms programs need to be spread over 40+ states to ensure immunity in congress and the F-35 isn’t exactly free of suboptimal work shares as well.
“spread over 40+ states to ensure immunity in congress….” WRONG. Congressmen/women DO often “lobby” on behave of local defense contractors to get or sustain federal funding, in the name of “saving local jobs”. Pathetic, is it?“F-35 isn’t exactly free of suboptimal work shares as well.” UK/BAE aside, work-share setup for the rest of the international partners is more or less patronizing. The time has come when foreign companies are able to make superior subsystems and components at cheaper price than American counterparts.
The question comes down to:
Is A400M program < HREF="http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/05/08/326197/airbus-military-details-recovery-plan-for-at-risk-a400m.html" REL="nofollow">salvageable<>?
Much investment and RDT&E (reportably, >50% done) have been poured into it and that the tactical requirement is still there. < HREF="http://www.flightglobal.com/AIRSPACE/forums/a400m-will-they-or-will-they-not-cancel-22118.aspx" REL="nofollow">Alternative<>: C130XL.