The Brown is very keen at telling us all how ‘committed’ we are – committed to getting blown up by diy roadside devices in Afghanistan for no other reason that it ensures Gordon’s place at the top table; committed to paying our way in Europe, and committed to the ridiculous piece of flying (not) shit – the Air(Land)bus A400M.Talks about this Euroturd started as long ago as 1985 with an overall requirement emerging in May 1991 as the FLA Outline European Staff Target (OEST) stated the need for an aircraft with a 32-tonne payload carried in a 4m-wide cargo hold, a 700km/h cruise speed and a range of between 4,000 and 5,000km.
As the saying goes, a camel is a horse designed by a committee so a plane designed and built by Aérospatiale, Alenia, BAe, Casa and Deutsche Airbus, later encompassing FLABEL of Belgium, OGMA of Portugal and TAI of Turkey never stood a chance of being built on time, on budget and half decently.
However early lip service showed that an initial production run of at least 300 aircraft was likely with entry into service planned for 2003 and full operational capability in 2004/2005 – that’s the 2005 that happened four years ago!
France and Germany have openly bitched about cancelling their orders of the Euroturd, instead preferring to go with the C-130 & C-160 Lockheed updates; or possibly reducing the number or aircraft purchased; in the case of Germany a reduction of 13 aircraft which in turn increases the unit cost to all of the other partners like Britain who are – ‘committed’.
Britain has ordered 25 of the aircraft, worth approximately €100 million each. Well done – let’s all pat ourselves on the back again, we already own the worlds shittiest banks so throwing in this lemon won’t make much difference.
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