In a ceremony presided over by His Majesty Juan Carlos I, King of Spain, Airbus Military has today rolled out the first complete A400M military transport aircraft from the Final Assembly Line facility in Seville, Spain. Designed initially to a recognised requirement for a new airlifter for European air forces, the A400M incorporates the state-of-the-art materials and technology that are being continuously perfected in today’s civil aircraft fleets. Features such as electronic flight controls, carbon composite structures and an automated handling system will bring new standards of operability and safety to military aircrews. Launched under a single contract in 2003 with 180 orders for seven European launch customers, the A400M represents the most ambitious military procurement programme ever undertaken in Europe. The launch customer nations, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Germany, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom were subsequently joined by Malaysia and South Africa, which recognised the potential of the new airlifter for their own requirements and brought the total number of commitments to 192. The A400M is the first truly new military transport aircraft of its category designed in over 30 years, with twice the capacity and twice the payload of the current aircraft types that it will replace. It is all set to become the new standard in military airlift. “Today is a great day for our industry,” said Carlos Suarez, CEO of Airbus Military and Head of MTAD: “It is the result of the combined efforts and determination of all those involved in the programme. It has been supported by the national governments - our customers, the industrial partners, the suppliers, and the employees who have worked to produce the aircraft. I would like to thank and congratulate them all.” GTD has been one of the most relevant partners for this program, being involved from the avionics design, up to integration and test/certification of the aircraft. GTD was awarded recently also by EADS for the FFS “Full Flight Simulator” data engineering, and with contract, the amount of GTD’s contacts related to A400M is already above 18 M€.
