By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake This year’s Farnbourgh Airshow is occurring at an interesting juncture in history. On the financial side, there is the Euro crisis, and various dynamics such as the fate of the Chinese and American economies. On the defense side, there is the end of a…
06/21/2012: Airbus Military has successfully demonstrated the loading of NH Industries NH90 and Eurocopter EC725 helicopters onto the A400M new generation airlifter. In a series of tests at Holzdorf air base in Germany and at Toulouse, France respectively, the NH90 and EC725 were loaded onto, and unloaded from, the Grizzly…
6/11/12: By Robbin Laird One of the more interesting presentations at the Airbus Military Trade Media Brief 2012 was by the head of training at Airbus Military. Ian Burrett, Head of Training and Aircrew Operations, Customer Services, provided an overview of the approach and the standing up of the baseline…
6/8/12: The A400M is being built with the 21st century approach to fleet management in mind. Ranging from Unique Identification Tags built in, to multinational training, to providing for global support, the A400M has the advantages inherent in advanced manufacturing. As we argued earlier: It was clear notably with the…
06/16/2011: Cédric Gautier, head of the A400M program, provided an update on the program at the Airbus Trade Media event in mid-May 2011. [slidepress gallery='an-update-on-the-a400m-program'] Photo Credit: Airbus Military Gautier started by providing an overview on the aircraft itself. He argued that this is “a new modern aircraft with modern…
06/14/2011: The A400M can both be refueled in the air and function, itself as an air tanker. This will allow it to be a key part of any task force. As Pablo Quesada Ramos, Head of Market Development, MRTT and other Airbus platforms derivatives, noted in an interview:The A400M can…
06/11/2011 - At last year’s Airbus Military Trade media event, Richard Thompson, head of Airbus Military Services, provided an overview to the evolving services approach: In terms of concepts that we are developing, we’re moving from what has been for the last year’s traditional product support, all the usual things…
06/02/2011: In a brief during the Airbus Military Trade media event, the A400M head test pilot, Ed Strongman, provided an update on the status of the flight test program. Over the past 18 months there have seen significant flight-testing within the program. As of May 10, 2011, 55 pilots have flown…
