RE: Airbus A400M

[Arclight <arclight@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 13:46 25.01.2002 -0800, Jeff Pawlowski wrote:

<snip>

>I meant no disrespect to the Europeans.  After reading
>my post, it sounded condescending.  I'm just in a
>state of disbelief.

:)   No offense detected in that mail, though.

<snip>

>In this case, the Europeans are placing orders on ONE
>single idea, when the idea hasn't even been
>built/tested, etc.
>
>This just amazes me.

As the european countries want to develope and build that plane in europe, 
and there's only one company capable... it's basically the problem that 
it's necessary to buy a not-yet-build plane for a higher cost to support an 
own military industry sector. Take a look at the Eurocopter company, they 
are building the Tigre/Tiger for germany and france right now. AFAIK, and 
please note that I'm not particulary interested in 
planes/helicopters/ships/tanks, it will not even have a better performance 
than a AH-64, and might even be more expensive. But if it's not build, 
Eurocopter will fall behind the SOTA (*if* they are SOTA now). So it's 
about independance, in a way.

Arclight