For the military aircraft buffs ...

Airbus A400-M takes off on maiden flight

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8407825.stm?ls

Pretty cool ...

 

Is that the thing that The Register was pretty scathing about today?

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Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
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WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

Dunno, not read TR .. but it is well overdue, going to cost way more
than anticipated and SA has already cancelled their out-of-date order,
so, like I said ... pretty cool ...

 

Sounds suspiciously like...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/11/a400m_flies/

Hmm, it's the A400M all right, but the Reg article doesn't seem
to actually say "Airbus".

 

http://www.airbusmilitary.com/

"The first Airbus Military A400M military airlifter has landed back in
Seville, Spain, after completing a successful maiden flight lasting 3h
47min."

The Reg article also makes reference to EADS, which is the consortium
that makes Airbus.

 

That's a crap article. Quite honestly, nothing I've read in the
register in the last five years has been worth the paper it wasn't
written on.

 

Looks like cross between a Herc and an Antonov.

As the first of a new generation of military transports, I was expecting
something bigger.

 

I'd assume an ability to land on crappy airstrips was a requirement,
which pretty much rules out anything the size of a 747.

 

It is considerably bigger than a Hercules. The difficult part in making
it bigger is the requirement to operate from short rough strips.

 

sadly, you're right. However, anything written by Lewis Page, you have
to assume his tongue is firmly in his cheek.

 

Ah, right. And Ogden makes sense too[1].

[1] There's a first.

 

I'd guess it needs a short land and take-off ability from 'bush'
airports .. anything much bigger needs a lot more in the way of
infrastructure to operate from and to.

 

I don't know the ins and outs of plane making, but it seems to me that Lewis
Page regularly makes the point that we could be buying US kit that does the
same job as homegrown gear for much less. Providing it's a lot less (because
you'd need to account for the multiplier effect of Govt spending and the
cost of benefits for the laid off workers), that would seem to make good
sense to me. We really couldn't go fighting a war without support from the
US anyway.

 

I like the clapping as it left the ground. What did they expect it to do,
veer across the runway and mow the daft fuckers down?


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

"We have a new aircraft ... and it actually flies!"

 

Crikey, that's quite gruesome. Some of it reminds me of the pic of a
bloke who'd been run over by a tank that used to be on Dan's Gallery of
the Grotesque 15 years or so ago.

 

took a blunt brush and painted...

Need to create a uTube account to view this video.

I think not.

 

Full version's on Google Vids anyway.

 

Poor fuckers. Leuchars it aint.

 

The pilot walked away, though 84 people were killed and over 100 injured.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=3320850772548519355&hl=en