TSAMTO, May 26. Airbus has announced the delivery of the 100th BTA A-400M Atlas aircraft to the customer. The aircraft, designated MSN111, was transferred to the Spanish Air Force Command. It was the tenth A400M delivered by Airbus to this country.
According to Airbus, the plane on May 24 flew from Seville to Zaragoza, where the A-400M of the Spanish Air Force is located.
This week, the total flight time of the A-400M fleet of eight customer countries reached 100 thousand flight hours.
Recently, Airbus, together with the Directorate General for Armaments of the French Ministry of the Armed Forces, successfully completed a series of A-400M certification flight tests for aerial refueling of helicopters, including the first simultaneous refueling of two rotorcraft.
As reported by TSAMTO, in May 2003, Spain decided to purchase 27 A-400M military transport aircraft worth about 6 billion rubles. euro. However, due to the difficult economic situation in mid-2013, the Spanish Ministry of Defense revised its plans, deciding to abandon the adoption of 13 aircraft. These A-400M are planned to be purchased starting in 2025, and then offered for sale on the foreign market. Under an agreement between the Spanish Defense Ministry and Airbus Defense and Space, the first batch of 14 aircraft will be delivered to the Spanish Air Force in the period from 2016 to 2023.
The final assembly of the first A-400M (MSN44) for the Spanish Air Force began at the plant in San Pablo (Seville) in October 2015. The aircraft was delivered to the Spanish Air Force in November 2016.
The A-400M of the Spanish Air Force is based in Zaragoza. They have added to the BTA fleet, which also includes Airbus Defense and Space-supplied medium C-295, CN-235 and light C-212 aircraft. The new A-400M will replace the outdated C/KC-130H Hercules aircraft and will allow you to transport twice as much cargo over the same distance or a similar cargo over twice as much distance. In addition, they can serve as tankers for other VTA aircraft, including the A-400M.
A-400M "Atlas" is equipped with four turboprop engines and provides transportation of up to 35 tons of cargo both inside the theater and between them, landing troops and equipment, including from high altitudes, refueling in the air of aircraft and helicopters, medical evacuation.