Friday, December 6, 2013

Retirement before entering service?

Airbus Military announced that the prototype A400M transport aircraft has been retired.  A400M is the pan European heavy transport program.  The aircraft are huge 4 engine turboprops.  The first deliverable model only handed over to the French air force this summer.  It will take years of production to fill all the back orders for the aircraft.  Surely Airbus will have some engineering change orders needing flight check soon.
  So why retire the prototype?  These things ain't cheap, something like $100 million each.  Is the prototype so bent and broken that nobody wants  to fly it anymore?  Why not fix it up and bring it up to standard and ship it, and get paid for it?  Or use it for research and development.  Surely there are programs that could use a truly big airlifter for something?  

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