Bearing the weight of the world

With a testing program of over 3,200 hours by early June under its belt, initial operating certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), and a number of military-specific tests underway or nearing completion, the long road to seeing the Atlas emerge appears to be drawing to a close.

But it hasn’t been without its hiccups. Financial and technical problems have plagued the A400M program for over a decade, and at one point Airbus threatened to cancel it unless additional funding was agreed to by the partner nations.

That resulted in the negotiation of a new contract with OCCAR, the multinational consortium which is the launch customer for 170 of the 174 aircraft on order, which calls for delivery of the first aircraft by the end of the March quarter, 2013.

Progress in flight testing across 2011 and into this year led to initial type certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency on April 30.
Head of the A400M program for Airbus Military, Cedric Gautier told reporters at a briefing in Toulouse in June that the initial type certification was “very significant for us because this is the condition by EASA that we have sound design and a sound aircraft.”

At that briefing, Airbus had been confident that final certification following a 300 hour function and reliability (F&R) flight test program using the production-representative aircraft, MSN6, would allow it to achieve full type certification in July, with initial operating capability in August ahead of first customer delivery by August.

But that schedule appears to have been disrupted by issues with the aircraft’s technically ambitious Europrop International TP400-D6 turboprops. In May, MSN4 was briefly grounded in Oman and required an engine change following an in-flight shutdown, while another engine issue delayed MSN6’s expected start of F&R testing.

More recently, Airbus had to pull out of flying the giant airlifter at the Farnborough Airshow in July after yet another engine gearbox issue presented itself in late June. That follows a similar last minute withdrawal from the flying program at last year’s Le Bourget airshow in Paris.

The latest incident has now cast doubts to whether the aircraft can be delivered as expected, with some sources reporting that Airbus is now internally working towards the March 2013 contractual delivery deadline rather than the December 2012 target.

A rocky path

The A400M emerged during the early 2000s, building on plans for a Future Large Airlifter developed throughout the 1980s and 1990s to meet the tactical transport needs of the UK, Turkey, Belgium, France, Germany and other European nations.

Driving the program was the need to have a replacement for the venerable C-130 Hercules variants already in service with a number of air forces, as well as the Franco-German Transall C-160.

The aircraft is today pitched as a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to military transport. With a payload of up to 37 tonnes with a volume of 340 cubic metres and an ability to cruise at up to Mach 0.72 at up to 40,000ft, the aircraft has a strong strategic airlift capability.

As well as that, the Atlas has been designed to operate into unprepared strips of a minimum of 750 metres, making it well suited to tactical applications, such as intra-theatre transport and providing humanitarian relief in a disaster zone.

At the same time, the plan was to allow the aircraft to use air-to-air refueling, with optional hose and drogue pods allowing it to fuel a variety of other aircraft, including fast jets and helicopters.

With such a variety of missions, designing and manufacturing the aircraft on time and on budget was always going to be challenging for Airbus and its partners.

A particular pressure point has been the Europrop International TP 400 turboprops, which are a collaborative effort between Rolls-Royce, MTU Aero Engines, Snecma and ITP.

At 1.9 tonnes and 3.5m long, the TP400 is currently the largest turboprop engine in production, and produces a whopping 11,000shp at sea level from its three-shaft architecture, driving an eight bladed composite propeller.

“The engine is a big engine, it’s a complex engine, a complex propeller,” said senior vice president flight and integration test, Fernando Alonso. “It’s a huge challenge because we are expecting the engines to produce a lot of thrust, not much noise, good behavior at high angles of attack, so we’re asking a lot from the engines.”

Early prototypes of the TP400 suffered from poor specific fuel consumption, while problems with documentation on the FADEC (full authority digital engine control) system during development created major headaches. Gearbox failures have also presented major problems for Europrop, with a full gearbox failure experienced in 2011.

“The issues we had last year are completely fixed. The root cause has been found, the modification designed and made and incorporated into the aircraft,” said Mr Gautier.

But two more recent incidents have highlighted that some further refinements are required for the giant engine.

MSN6 suffered an abnormally high engine vibration earlier this year, delaying its entry into F&R testing, and requiring the engine to be replaced. The cause was later tracked back to improper balancing of the engine at the factory.

But the inflight shutdown of the number two engine on MSN 4 while in transit back from a tour through Asia, forcing it to make an unscheduled stop in Oman, has raised more concerns.

Airbus has not yet revealed the cause of the shutdown, but at the June briefing Mr Gautier said that while it was not the same failure experienced last year, the nature of it was similar, and so it is expected that a fix could be developed within weeks, and that it was unlikely to hold up the final certification of the aircraft.

“If we have to make a modification on a little part of the gearbox, I think we can make a delta qualification proving the reliability of the gearbox without the necessity to do the full reliability testing again,” he said.

Mr Alonso added that while it had been causing some headaches, finding the engine issues while still in flight-testing has been something of a blessing in disguise.

“I’m kind of proud that we’ve had all these problems because at the end of the day. It shows that we have taken the engines and the airplanes to its limits and finding the problems there.

“The more problems that we find now, the better it is, because we have with us an excellent partner, EPI who have been very reactive.”

“We are very privileged to have good support from the engine manufacturer to fix those problems,” he added.

But solid progress in recent flight tests and a belief that issues with the aircraft’s engines can be overcome seem to indicate that the airlifter will soon start to enter the fleets of Europe’s air forces.

Testing and production

Since the first A400M made its first flight in 2009, the fleet of five development aircraft have amassed over 3200 flying hours, and this year has seen it focused on achieving certification ahead of deliveries originally planned for the end of this year.

Over the past year, the five Grizzlys have been involved in a variety of flight tests at locations as far away as La Paz in Bolivia to much closer to home in France, Germany and Spain.

These have included high altitude testing, noise testing to validate compliance with ICAO Chapter 4 noise standards, a number of air-to-air refueling dry hook-ups and flight testing in natural icing conditions, most of which have progressed as expected.

At the trade media briefing in June, Airbus was pushing through the aircraft into functionality and reliability testing, a key milestone in achieving the aircraft’s full certification from EASA, which had been planned for the middle of the year, but had yet to be awarded at the time of writing.

Despite the latest issues, production is beginning to ramp up at the final assembly line in Seville, Spain.

The first production aircraft, MSN 8, entered the final assembly line in March this year. That aircraft will be used to certify some functions not on the five development aircraft later this year, prior to its handover to OCCAR, who will then deliver it on to the French Air Force.

“We intend to deliver three aircraft next year. In 2014, it is around seven or eight aircraft,” said Mr Gautier.

“The full production rate will be achieved in 2015 with 2.5 aircraft to be delivered per month.”

Mr Gautier admits that the high tempo of many aerospace programs around the world does pose some risk to the Atlas’s aggressive ramp up plans.
“Currently the supply chain is under pressure to perform on all the aircraft from the whole Airbus company so we are monitoring the supply chain very closely,” he said.

As well as the development of the aircraft itself, there has been a major ramp up in support for the A400M for its partner nations.

“This is not only an aircraft, this is an aircraft plus services and we have to deliver both to the customer to have a complete aircraft,” said Mr Gautier.
To that end, a number of loadmasters and pilots have already undertaken courses at the Atlas training centre in Seville.

As with modern civil pilot training schemes, the training on offer makes the use of several computer based aids, ranging from simple familiarisation trainers to the full flight simulator.

In addition, at Farnborough it was announced that the UK has ordered an A400M full flight simulator, following similar orders from Germany and France. The simulator will be built by Thales for Airbus Military, and will be delivered in 2014.

Development work is still continuing, and will necessitate some of the five Grizzlys to continue flying after the first Altases are handed over, with Airbus already putting forward a schedule of Standard Operating Clearance (SOC) packages would be added to the aircraft progressively.

“The update is mainly software, mainly FMS because that was the biggest change in the contract last year,” said Mr Gautier.

The first upgrade, SOC1, is due in 2013 and will allow the aircraft to receive fuel from a tanker via is probe mounted above the cockpit.

To support this, the development aircraft have already been involved in a series of dry hook-ups with VC-10 and A330 tankers, resulting in some adjustments to the flight management system.

“We introduced those tests in the middle of the civil certification campaign in order to de-risk the certification of the military activities,” said Mr Alonso. “I think the fact that we were able to identify some issues on the flight controls and fixed them, I think that is proof that we made the right decision.”

A second upgrade, SOC 1.5, will enable full aerial delivery and initial tanker capability in 2014. This will also see the integration of the aircraft’s self-protection system, a vital requirement for its tactical role.

This will be followed by another upgrade in 2015, SOC 2, that will give the aircraft enhanced tactical capability and additional performance. This will be followed by SOC2.5, which delivers enhanced tanker and search and rescue capabilities in 2017.

The final package of improvements, SOC 3, is due in 2018 and will introduce low level flight capabilities in the aircraft.

Pushing for sales

As the aircraft readies for service, Airbus Military is also starting to ramp up its sales activities to add to the backlog of 174 aircraft.

“There is still a lot to be done but we are still as happy as ever with the airplane, and are eager to show it around to different nations and different air forces,” said Mr Alonso.

So far, the largest customer is Germany, with 53 Atlases on order, followed by France (50), Spain (27), the UK (22), Turkey (10), Belgium (seven) and Luxembourg (one, to be flown by Belgian crew). The UK also has options on another three aircraft and Germany a further seven options. All of those orders have been made through the OCCAR consortium.

In addition, Malaysia holds an order for four aircraft, first placed in 2005. Its first Atlas is scheduled for delivery in 2014.

South Africa had ordered eight aircraft in 2004, but cancelled the order five years later following the delays to the program and its escalating cost. More recently it has been viewed as a likely participant in the Embraer KC-390 program.

But Airbus is keen to see more sales come through soon, particularly as some slots are already opening up.

“The first export slots would be in 2016 – that’s why we’re starting marketing now,” said Mr Gautier.

Supporting that effort, MSN 4 was displayed at LIMA in Malaysia, and was also shown to a number of officials in Indonesia and Thailand.

Further sales could come from the Middle East, where countries such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have recently expanded their airlift capabilities, particularly for use in disaster situations. However, the dominance of the C-130J and to a lesser extent the C-17 could make it a limited market.

Closer to home New Zealand has shown some interest in the A400M as a replacement for its five C-130Hs (which are currently undergoing a life extension program), while for now, the RAAF is probably a longer term prospect, given its airlift fleet for the forseeable future will be based around six C-17s, 12 C-130Js and 10 C-27Js. But at some point next decade the A400M could move into the frame as a replacement for the C-130J (which were delivered in 1999-2000

Nearly there

While the latest engine issue may have thrown a spanner in the works, the large amount of work done already seems to indicate that now more than ever that the Atlas will become a key tool for modern air forces in Europe and around the world.

“The production is a reality, we are progressing with our plan and we are very confident that we will fulfill our commitment to our customers,” said Mr Gautier.

“We have already presented the aircraft in the base of Orleans for the French Air Force and Brize Norton base in the case of the RAF.
“The pilots are absolutely enthusiastic and they are eager to receive very quickly this aircraft, which is a real step forward to the current competitors, and now the dream is becoming a reality.”