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A400M
PARIS—The French government has become the launch customer for an Airbus effort to start evolving the A400M airlifter beyond its baseline capabilities.
French defense procurement agency DGA said it awarded Airbus a contract for the so-called Parallel Mission System (PMS) to boost the aircraft’s current operational capabilities.
The PMS is the first step in what Airbus envisions as a multiyear evolution of the program that will eventually turn it into a collaborative combat node fully integrated with uncrewed vehicles, Antonio Suarez Ameiva, the manufacturer’s A400M France program director, said at the Eurosatory expo here.
The project will introduce a core computer system and removable roll-on/roll-off workstations in the cargo bay, DGA said. It will also add intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, such as removable optics sensors. The goal is to better support land operations, DGA said.
France plans to modify 20 aircraft at the outset for the capability.
The contract breathes life into a push by Airbus to get customers to think about evolving the transport aircraft that took years to develop but now has reached its full operational status. The company has said it could add a 3-metric-ton payload to the system and suggested it could also evolve into a mother ship for drones and have a firefighting system.
The DGA underscored that desire with the PMS contract announcement, saying the A400M's “mission system will also eventually allow for the management of drones, bombs, and missiles that could be launched from the aircraft’s cargo bay,”
Airbus says the first of the enhanced A400Ms is due for delivery to France after a brief development phase. Flight testing is planned in 2028, with the system to be fully qualified before 2029.
“With this development, the French Air and Space Force is acquiring an aircraft capable of becoming a tactical command and control tool in the air,” Airbus Executive Vice President for Air Power Jean-Brice Dumont said in a statement.
Airbus has also not given up on the idea of using the A400M as a jamming platform, even though Germany opted for a business jet over the transport aircraft for its standoff jamming platform. Suarez said the jammer concept still exists, but more as an escort system, including through the use of remote carriers to create a bubble to keep assets safe within a certain operational period.
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