Couldn't agree with you more on that.
NATO countries have often leased carrier service by An-124s.

Maybe next they'll recognize the An-70... (which itself has had numerous troubles) can deliver where the A400M can't (meaning, it could be in service in 2 years, maybe).

 

Perhaps it's time to realize that the days of these medium-capacity turboprop airlifters are over?

The J-Herc is in no way to the C-130 fleet what the Super Hornet is to previous A-D model Hornets.

It's not a lot of improvement (payload to range) over the original C-130 fleet (not enough that many would like to have: >20 tonnes to >1000km).

 

We had our solution back in the 1970s, in the AMST Program....

Look what we got out of it: the YC-15 led to the highly successful (what aircraft didn't mature to production without teething troubles?) C-17 Globie III.

The YC-14 (perhaps in a sincerest form of flattery) inspired the Russian An-72/An-74 "Coaler"... aircraft.

 

These modern generation turbofans (especially those new geared designs in P&W's workshops) are certainly as fuel efficient as any turboprop, and certainly don't cause as much vibration or physical noise (the An-70 was never a quiet aircraft with its eggbeater props...how many Europeans are going to bitch when those noisy A400Ms fly over their neighborhood?).

 

Back to the AMSTs, something I've hit on numerous times, we were looking at payloads as high as 81,000 pounds in standard-field-length performance, and (according to Wiki), "The official RFP was issued in January 1972, asking for operations into a 2,000 feet (610 m) semi-prepared field at 500 nmi (930 km) with a 27,000 lb (12,000 kg) payload in both directions with no refueling. For comparison, the C-130 of that era required about 4,000 ft (1,200 m) for this load. "

 

The turbofans each aircraft there mounted, 4 P&W JT8D's in the YC-15 @ 15,500pounds thrust;

2 GE CF6-50Ds in the YC-14 @ 51,000pounds thrust,

those engines each have further evolved from those 1972 designs.

Matter of fact, a recent JT8D... contract suggested they could now achieve 21,700pounds thrust, a considerably-larger comparative output than the J-Herc's AE-2100s over the orignial Hercules' T56 engines (both engines are currently rated at under 5000shp, even though the AE2100 does have more growth, that LunkMart should've sought to exploit earlier in the J-Herc design (again, my suggestion that it wasn't comparable to what the Super Hornet is when compared to A-D Hornets).

As to the CF-6s in the YC-14: the CF-6 Family... has considerable growth potential over this AMST's 51,000pounds thrust.

LunkMart sold the C-27J Spartan JCA partially on engine commonality with the J-Herc, so effectively we could've marketed a new YC-14 on engine commonality with the C-5M... Super Galaxy's CF6-80... series engines (59,000pounds thrust over the original C-5's TF39s of 43,000pounds thrust).

 

Alas, looks like we're stuck with what we got (or don't got, for the Europeans).

 

Herald,

Regarding highlighted above, you will love this!!!!

Towards the end of last year I attended the National Guard Association of the United States (NGAUS) convention in Baltimore MD.  As its a Guard convention both the Army and Air force were both fully supported the with ALL the Land and Air Def Contractors there in strength.

In the morning before show opened to visitors I was cruising around doing the networking thing and generally BSing with other engineers etc.  Was in the Boeing Booth and what should I over hear but a conversation between some senior Boeing and EAD's folks regarding some sort of "Collaboration" regarding A400M!!!!  It was quite informal, however discussion went along the line of  "Lets not let the current Tanker "Unpleasantness" get in the way of what could be a mutually beneficial business relationship"!!!!!!!

I initially thought purely along the line of a marketing relationship to enable EADS to break into the US market for transport aircraft. But as you mentioned, the A400M has legitimate technical issues which Boeing expertise may be well suited to solve.

Well.....I doubt that Boeing will bite. There is a lot of bitterness over the tanker deal left in the Boeing crowd.

 

They don't have anyone to blame, but themselves (both parties for both cases). Still I would have said: "Okay, we'll fix your bird for you, but we build the part of it that we fix here in the States, you give us work share, market share and exclusive US rights to sell the bird.

 

It would have given Boeing a wedge into the military transport market, and it probably was EADS best shot at avoiding the mess they are in now.

 

You know that when you don't have a clue about composite structures and you foul up the load bearing calcs as badly as the EADS crew did in designing the A-400M frame members? Its a lot easier to fix it in the computer than it is in the air when the test bird shows the entire world that your software and the assumptions that you used to design her was CRAP. 

 

The A-400M  should work, It really should, but it is going to take more than 5800 detail changes to fix it.

 

Can you say NEW WING and fuselage joint?

 

Herald

 

You got to wonder about some of the bugs in the code.

 

I can't find them all even when I work from Word.

 

Herald.

I've move away from using Word. I thik there is too much hidden formatting in Word documents.

 

I now use wordpad instead and get fewer formatting errors.

Oh man that's costly, even tot eh unlettered, and unwashed such as myself...when your a/c has wing-box problems, F-111 springs to mind you've got some problems and costs to sort out...

 

Is there any way that the installation of OSF or Spectra would remediate any of the problems or could a new and soon to be funded ASEA radar make the A-400m more attractive?  Just grasping for solutions, here....

"The plane she does not fly as far as you would like, but zut alors it has theeese amazing IRST system."

Ask someone far more knowledgeable than me about the F-22 and the LockMart airframe life hours  foul up and how much its going to cost to FIX that mistake..

 

Herald