A400M won't enter service till 2013 -- at least

BRUSSELS, March 25 (UPI) -- A400M won't enter service till 2013 -- at least

The delay-plagued A400M Airbus heavy military air transport won't be in service for at least another four years -- well into 2013, Defense News reported last week.

The delay could prove to be even worse as the prototype aircraft has not even had its maiden flight yet.

The A400Ms being developed by Airbus, a subsidiary of the European Aeronautics, Defense and Space Co. It has suffered an endless succession of setbacks in its $27 billion development program.

The delays have left the seven European nations that have invested heavily in the A400M for their air forces scrambling frantically for interim solutions for their military air transportation needs.

The European arms agency, OCCAR, has audited the A400M's production schedule and concluded it will only start being delivered for operational use in 2013. EADS had previously said that the delay would be only three years, until 2012. EADS still says publicly it will deliver the first aircraft in three years and the second in four to France, the government of which has been a driving force behind the program.

France has ordered 50 A400Ms, and Germany has ordered 60. But France now says it is considering reducing the number of the aircraft it will buy in order to bridge the delivery gap with other transport aircraft now available.

The French government still insists it will not cancel its orders for the A400M, despite its huge delays, reductions in projected performance and cost overruns. However, if several countries were to cancel, the entire program could disintegrate.

To bridge the gap, France is considering asking EADS for accelerated delivery of its already-ordered A330 multi-role transport tankers. It may lease C-160 Transalls from Germany. However, EADS officials have argued that buying the C-160s would require modifications to the planes. France may also lease air transports from the Brussels-based, U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The A400M's problems have created a huge sales opportunity for the U.S. aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin. They are offering their reliable, existing heavy air transports as interim solutions, either for sale or lease, to Britain's Royal Air Force and may do so to some of the other European air forces hit hard by the A400M fiasco.

As we have previously reported in these columns, the A400M is also having trouble with the new engines that were specially developed for it. They are not as powerful as they were supposed to be and significantly reduced the aircraft's projected range and cargo-carrying capacity.

Contract renegotiations are due to begin soon between EADS and the seven European nations that have ordered the A400M -- Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Malaysia and South Africa have also placed orders. EADS is expected to have to pay severe penalties and offer new guarantees about its delivery dates. However, many analysts are skeptical about how credible such guarantees will be, given the company's performance on the project so far.

Britain buys F-35s, may buy more for Royal Navy

British Defense Secretary John Hutton has announced his government is going to buy three U.S. Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters. The British Ministry of Defense will then evaluate the aircraft before deciding whether to buy a larger number of short takeoff and vertical landing versions of the aircraft for use on the Royal Navy's aircraft carriers.

The government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown has approved the construction of two new 60,000-ton aircraft carriers, the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales. They will be the largest warships ever built for the Royal Navy and will expand the navy's carrier force to a larger size and capability than it has enjoyed in half a century.

The initial order for the first three F-35s will be worth at least $574 million. The Ministry of Defense considered scrapping the purchase to cut costs in the current economic crisis but eventually decided to go ahead with it. The aircraft should be delivered between 2011 and 2012.

Stimulus funding boosts French defense spending

The French Ministry of Defense will use some of the economic stimulus directed to the nation's defense industry to spend almost $27.5 billion on domestic arms in 2009. That will more than double the French government's spending on domestically produced weapons from $12.7 billion in 2008.

In exchange for sending French armaments manufacturers these new orders, the Delegation Generale pour l'Armement will seek favorable deals from the companies. The new spending will also boost expenditures on research and development by a factor of 10. Some $1.1 billion of the stimulus package is earmarked for research. In 2008, only $90 million was spent on research.