The Germans are coming!

[vilters]

Ach, I forgot the Tornado.

Whaw , what a wonderful peace time flying club machine.

The first day in battle, they had to call the Bucaneer out of retirement to laser for them. Good Job guys. Got at least a medal for that one huh?

Oeps. . . . . . . . . . . . Somebody forgot some details...
Or?
The cost ran so out of control that, well, who is ever gonna laser anyway.. We"ll get away with it.
Until they had to go to battle.

Also : The Tornado was build for???? A mission that never came??
Then we got stuck with the thing so lets convert it to the ADF version.
Ja-ja-ja, my grandpa can chase cows with a leaveblower too.

Use the right tool for the Job.

The Tornado was a compromise between many countries desires, and politically correct as we are, everybody got something, but the sum was never really outstanding at anything else but to go low and fast. Something NOBODY actually needed.

[ricnunes]

The "bright" idea that got us all under the table from laughing, crying, tears flowing, enfin, you get the picture.

The A-400.
Where on earth did they "re-invent" the long abandoned idea that a "T" tail is/was a good idea for a supposedly all terrain cargo/support aircraft.

How, somewhere in their deepest darkest minds could they forget that a "T" tail is and never will be a good idea for a military "all terrain" aircraft because structural fatigue will shorten A/C life drastically.

A "T" tail on a C-5, OK.
A "T" tail on a C-17, OK. They are never supposed to land in the dirt anyway.

But on a cargo A/C that is "supposed" to compete with a C-130? Only twisted minds can come up with pfffft a "T" tail.

What you say about the "T" tail makes sense.
Another manufacturer doing the same mistake is Embraer with its KC-390.

[ricnunes]

Ach, I forgot the Tornado.

Whaw , what a wonderful peace time flying club machine.

The first day in battle, they had to call the Bucaneer out of retirement to laser for them. Good Job guys. Got at least a medal for that one huh?

Yup!
And wasn't also the Tornado the combat aircraft that suffered the highest number of loses to enemy (Iraqi) air defences during Desert Storm 1991?

They (Tornados) only stop suffering high loses when they changed the tactics from low-level ("nap-pf-the-earth") attacks from high altitude attacks with LGBs (designated by the Buccaneers) which basically eliminated the purpose and concept which the Tornado was designed around!

[vilters]

The problem these modern days is that everybody is so focused on fuel consumption that structural long time integrity goes way down the priority list.

Do with an A-400 what you can do with a C-130, (all terrain cargo), and structure life goes bananas.

Inspection and maintenance costs will go through the roof with those "T" tails.
We still can not believe it when we see one.

[vilters]

@ ricnunes

Completely correct. Oef, I am not the only one paying attention in aviation history.

[neptune]

....IMHO, one concern is the ongoing interest in Germany and France co-developing their own 5th gen. which will likely take a huge sum of money and time (generating jobs) and probably, ultimately will not interface with the NATO F-35 fleet.
I am all for competition but the distraction from adding that financial contribution to the advancement of the established F-35 base is disheartening. Even, if they took Israel's position and insisted on their avionics?/ engine?/ tires?, whatever?; as long as it supported the basic F-35 that could be produced in Italy??

....locally, we call these "lookee Louie's", with no intent to buy!

[ricnunes]

....IMHO, one concern is the ongoing interest in Germany and France co-developing their own 5th gen. which will likely take a huge sum of money and time (generating jobs) and probably, ultimately will not interface with the NATO F-35 fleet.

I don't think that this situation will be of any concern to anyone, specially of any concern to the F-35 program.
For starters when France and Germany finally manage to field a fighter aircraft with capabilities that remotely resembles the F-35 capabilities, the F-35 successor (whatever that might be) is already being developed or even nearing the end of its development and thus close to starting to being fielded or who knows maybe already reached IOC.
Then, I believe that before this unexpected news of "Germany being supposedly interested in the F-35" (at least unexpected to me) that nobody or hardly anyone would believe that both Germany and specially France would ever buy the F-35 (due to some nationalistic pride coupled protectionism of their national aerospace industry). What will happen is that France and Germany will probably have their orphan and somehow outdated fleet of homemade future fighter aircraft while the rest of Europe will go with the F-35.
Being too pride or too much protective has its consequences and these will be the consequences for both France and Germany which for them will probably be acceptable because of the reasons already pointed out by some here (Jobs, R&D, etc...) but also because France doesn't like to work closely with NATO and Germany doesn't seem to work with NATO in terms of airpower, at least anymore (and the only time it did was during Cold War to protect their own "Fatherland").

If there's someone who should be concerned about this decision, those would be the French and German taxpayers but again their "nationalistic pride" would prevent them of such concerns.

[botsing]

The "bright" idea that got us all under the table from laughing, crying, tears flowing, enfin, you get the picture.

The A-400.
Where on earth did they "re-invent" the long abandoned idea that a "T" tail is/was a good idea for a supposedly all terrain cargo/support aircraft.

How, somewhere in their deepest darkest minds could they forget that a "T" tail is and never will be a good idea for a military "all terrain" aircraft because structural fatigue will shorten A/C life drastically.

A "T" tail on a C-5, OK.
A "T" tail on a C-17, OK. They are never supposed to land in the dirt anyway.

But on a cargo A/C that is "supposed" to compete with a C-130? Only twisted minds can come up with pfffft a "T" tail.

Every design is a compromise.

The A400 has shoulder wings so the engines are higher above the ground to make them less likely to catch FOD. Maybe the airstreams from this shoulder wing makes a strengthened T-tail more favored?

In the past with the C-130 there were several incidents where the tail was damaged during loading/unloading. Having the horizontal tail higher might prevent this kind of damage and maybe makes the loading/unloading a bit faster due to less regulations?

These are just hypothetical examples that show us that without knowing the details it makes no sense to simply dismiss a design choice as "coming from a twisted mind".

[XanderCrews]

A "T" tail on a C-17, OK. They are never supposed to land in the dirt anyway.
:

Really?

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2pSSdjgQ5Lc/maxresdefault.jpg

Because one of their first requirements was operating from small and improvised strips.

[ricnunes]

A "T" tail on a C-17, OK. They are never supposed to land in the dirt anyway.
:

Really?

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2pSSdjgQ5Lc/maxresdefault.jpg

Because one of their first requirements was operating from small and improvised strips.

Yes indeed the C-17 can technically operate on the same/similar environments as even the C-130.
However it doesn't seem that the C-17 usually operates in such environments or resuming operations on such environments (small and improvised strips) are more of an exception than a rule when it comes to the C-17.

However I must point out that the C-17 (which in my opinion is the world's most impressive airlifter) is a Strategical Airlifter so low fuel consumption with very high altitude are huge and vital requirements for such an aircraft.

Also in my opinion is that one the things that's wrong with the A-400M is that this aircraft is a "Transvestite" between a Strategical and a Tactical Airlifter. With it's maximum 40 tons of payload/cargo it can't carry a Main Battle Tank (MBT) like the C-17 or C-5 can while it doesn't seem to be rugged enough to operate in environments where the C-130 can and usually operates in.

[spazsinbad]

[XanderCrews]

A "T" tail on a C-17, OK. They are never supposed to land in the dirt anyway.
:

Really?

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2pSSdjgQ5Lc/maxresdefault.jpg

Because one of their first requirements was operating from small and improvised strips.

Yes indeed the C-17 can technically operate on the same/similar environments as even the C-130.
However it doesn't seem that the C-17 usually operates in such environments or resuming operations on such environments (small and improvised strips) are more of an exception than a rule when it comes to the C-17.

.

What's the comparison for rough/short landing vs conventional on a400 vs c-17??

[ricnunes]

What's the comparison for rough/short landing vs conventional on a400 vs c-17??

Basically and from I could gather they (C-17 and A-400M) have the same or similar capabilities in terms of rough/short landings.

However the C-17 is an extremely useful (and excellent) Strategical Airlifter while the A-400M is (in my opinion) very limited in the Strategical Airlifter role. For example and while both C-17 and A-400M have similar rough/short landing capability the C-17 can carry more than 80 tons of cargo (it can carry a heavy MBT like the M-1 Abrams or Leopard 2) while the A-400M can only carry 40 tons (it can not carry MBTs or other very heavy hardware).

[vilters]

A carefully prepared sand beach to do a test-flight can hardly be called rough terrain.

The A-400 is a wannabe C-17 but fails.
It is also a wannabe C-130 but fails again.

I also wanna see the servicability of that fleet and the maintenance cost in 10-20 years from now.
Most will (or are already regretting) that they did not buy C-130.

The A-400 is just a "wanted to be" aircraft.

[spazsinbad]

'vilters' said: "carefully prepared sand beach to do a test-flight can hardly be called rough terrain": where did you get this information? The flights were tests so I'll guess it was what it was.