THE FIRST Airbus Military A400M military airlifter took off from Seville, Spain, just before Christmas on its maiden flight which lasted three hours, 47minutes. The aircraft was under command of the manufacturer’s Chief Test Pilot, Military, Edward “Ed” Strongman, supported by experimental test pilot, Ignacio “Nacho” Lombo.
The engineering team on board included: senior flight test engineer Jean- Philippe Cottet, who had responsibility for the powerplants; senior flight test engineer Eric Isorce, with responsibility for the aircraft systems and performance; senior flight test engineer Didier Ronceray, with responsibility for the handling qualities of the aircraft; and test flight engineer Gerard Leskerpit.
The crew confirmed that the aircraft, known, as MSN 1, and its four Europrop International TP400D turboprop engines, performed as expected. Strongman said after the flight: “We have had a very successful first flight – the take-off performance was impressive, we explored a lot of the operational flight envelope, and it was a delight to operate in such a well-designed cockpit with its easy interface to all the normal and military systems. I’m sure our customer pilots are really going to like it – we certainly did.” For its first flight the aircraft took off at a weight of 127 tonnes, carrying 15 tonnes of test equipment including two tonnes of water ballast, compared with its maximum take-off weight of 141 tonnes.
As planned, the six-man crew extensively explored the aircraft’s flight envelope in direct law, including a wide speed-range, and tested lowering and raising of the landing gear and high-lift devices at altitude. After checking the aircraft’s performance in the landing configuration the crew landed back at Seville. In the first half of 2010 MSN 1 will be joined by two sister aircraft, MSN 2 and MSN 3, followed by MSN 4 by the end of the year. A fifth aircraft will join the programme during 2011. This fleet will be used for some 3 700 hours of test-flying between now and first delivery to the French Air Force at the end of 2012. This will be followed by additional military development flying. The type will be certificated by both the civil and military authorities. A total of 184 aircraft has so far been ordered by Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom. South Africa had ordered the type but a few weeks prior to its maiden flight, cancelled its order.
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