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Airbus A400M concept
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One of the driving forces behind Airbus’ A400M military transport program, and of “pool” programs like NATO’s SALIS with Russian AN-124s or its recent SAC C-17 pool, is Europe’s shortage of transport aircraft to support military missions. This shortage will not be fixed any time soon. In the interim, NATO pools are about to be augmented by a more local partnership.

As the Netherlands struggled over proposed defense cuts in 2007, its Ministerie van Defensie signed an agreement with Germany, France and Belgium to create “European Air Transport Command” (EATC) as a coordination pool for their own military transports…

The draft agreement set out how participating countries will manage the command’s operations, which will be conducted out of Eindhoven in The Netherlands. This new command will employ between 150 and 200 jobs in the area – but it won’t become a central base. The military air transport aircraft (mostly C-160 Transalls in France and Germany, plus some C-130H Hercules transports in Belgium & Holland) will continue to be stationed and maintained on the air bases of the participating countries. Even so, EATC participants expect to benefit from more “surge” capability available at need, as well as greater efficiencies in overall fleet use.

Note that 3 of the 4 countries have orders for A400M transports on the way (France – 50, Germany – 60, Belgium – 7), while the Dutch have made no firm decision re: replacement of their aging C-130H-30s. This decision begins to weight the scales for that eventual decision… and of course, it also furthers the EU objective of creating a parallel military structure outside of NATO. Dutch MvD release | Defense Aerospace translation.

UPDATES:

Oct 29/09: The Dutch MvD and media sources confirm that the European Air Transport Command (EATC) will definitely be located at Royal Netherlands Air Force Headquarters in Eindhoven AFB, Netherlands. The Netherlands will begin a tender for construction of temporary housing on base, in order to meet the 2010 deployment schedule. Dutch MvD’s Defensiekrant #38 | Luchtvaartniews [in Dutch].

Nov 10/08: Aviation Week reports that 12 European Defense Agency (EDA) member countries have agreed to pool airlifter resources in the future, with the focus on the A400M. A formal letter of agreement is due in 2009 from existing A400M customers Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and Spain; as well as prospective customers the Czech Republic, Greece, the Netherlands, Romania, and Slovakia.

Initial operational capability is planned for 2014, with full operational capability planned for 2017. The scope of this cooperation, and number of aircraft involved, has yet to be worked out. The arrangements are likely to parallel’s NATO’s SAC pool of 3 C-17s, however. The Netherlands and Romania are also NATO SAC participants.

Oct 25/08: Europe’s two leading maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) providers Lufthansa Technik and Air France Industries have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to offer an extensive global component & logistic support service for Airbus A400M customers. Under this scheme, the companies will provide component repair & overhaul, engineering services, management of a dedicated component pool including all required logistics not only at the Air Forces’ A400M main bases, but also during various missions around the globe.

This kind of arrangement is similar to Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster Sustainment Partnership, and has obvious benefits for any kind of pooled approach. Lufthansa Tehnik release.