The A400M completes its first flight

The A400M completed its first flight in Seville last week, in front of a big audience.

The Airbus Military A400M airlifter completed last week, after several delays in the program, its first flight in front of a big audience with the presence of His Majesty the King of Spain, Mr. Juan Carlos de Borbón, the Spanish Minister of Defense, Mrs. Carme Chacón, and the Spanish Minister of Industry, Mr. Miguel Sebastián.

This maiden flight lasted more than three hours and ran very smoothly, with exceptional performance of the aircraft according to the test pilots and the test flight engineers.

Some more test units will be rolled out of the factory next year, to accomplish around 3700 more hours of test flights before the first operational unit is delivered to the French Air Force, programmed at the end of 2012.

The Catalan aerospace industry, which has had a significant industrial participation in the A400M program, congratulates EADS and Airbus Military for this successful flight.

You can find more details about this accomplishment in this Airbus Military press release.