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The Atlas at home

Britain's first A400M home base at Brize Norton (Credit: MOD UK)
The first British A400M under the hangar at Brize Norton Base (credit: MOD UK)

(B2) That's it! The first A400M Atlas has arrived across the Channel. Or rather the UK Ministry of Defense has officially unveiled its new 'home', Royal Air Force (RAF) base Brize Norton to the press.

As in the other countries, associated with this European industrial program, the British are delighted to finally be able to replace their existing fleet of C-130 Hercules which are rather exhausted, having traveled under the colors of the RAF for decades all the terrain . From Iraq to Afghanistan via Sierra Leone. In the United Kingdom, we are delighted with “the major advances” of this aircraft “ able to fly almost twice as fast, twice as far and carrying almost twice as much cargo”, as we like to point out at the RAF.

At the cutting edge of technology

"It's a great achievement said Philip Dunne, the Minister of Defence, not stingy with compliments in the press release he published on his site. " The program is at the cutting edge of modern technology, with its British-made software, wings and flight simulator.” This will allow the creation or guarantee of work for around 8.000 people with us. ". How do you say cocorico in the UK? He highlighted the " collaboration with our European and industry partners (Who) has (enabled) us to provide this world-class airlift capability to the RAF In the end, he added a short note to hope that the delivery schedule – to say the least mistreated – is now kept. " We now expect delivery of this (state-of-the-art) transport aircraft at a steady pace over the next few years.”.

The British buy European!

NB: note in passing that the British are thus in the process of re-equipping their fleet with European aircraft: the Airbus A400M Atlas for transport aviation, the A330 MRTT for multi-role aircraft and tankers and the Eurofighter alias Typhoon in the local market. It goes to show that when the offer is good, and there are industrial spin-offs at the national level, the British buy... European!

(NGV)

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

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