Hello everyone,
The much-awaited Airbus heavy lifter A-400M finally took off for its maiden flight today in Seville, apparently without incident.
Footage and pictures on the official site.
Pushed back by some 3 years now, the program still seems on track in spite of constant financial haggling between EADS and the client states.
So how about including it in the OOBs now? I don't think it's going to be canceled after all.
First delivery is supposed to be to France around January 2013, so taking into account further delays in the program and time for training and organization, I would put IOC at January 2014.
By 01/2015, the following countries should have it in service in usable quantities:
-France
-Germany
-Spain
-Belgium
-Turkey
-South Africa
-Malaysia
My delivery schedule is a bit out of date, so I'll try to see if I can get more details on other users next week.