The A400M in service

(BRUSSELS2) That's it! The first A400M of the French Air Force - which bears the serial number MSN7 - joined on August 2 the air base of Orléans-Bricy, its base of implementation within the army of the air. The official ceremony relating to this event “will take place at a later date, in the presence of the authorities concerned”, it is specified to the direction of the communication of the armies (DICOD). In addition to the two certifications - civil and military - the last two phases took place at the end of July and beginning of August. Qualification — that is, the verification of the aircraft's actual performance against contract specifications — took place on July 31. And the reception of the MSN7 device - aircraft control operations, on the ground and in flight - was carried out by the engineers, test pilots and quality specialists of the General Directorate of Armaments (DGA), the 1st of August. It's a crew exclusively composed of air force flight personnel “- we specify to the Dicod – which conveyed the device from its production site in Seville (Spain) to the base in Orléans-Bricy. Their training, as well as that of the technicians responsible for supporting the A400M, has been provided since January 2013 at several sites in Europe: Toulouse, Seville and Bremen.