Given the TP400 history and 16-20 ton load I think the C-390 is a better option and a A200M price is unlikely to have a significant price advantage.
Sometimes it’s not about being efficient. If that was the case they would be Shopping one of the existing platforms. Sometimes it’s about the program.
Some users will favour turboprop over turbo fan. IMHO a proposed A200M just doesn’t seem to be a significant advantage for the latest C-130J unless its kinematic performance is much better. Even then, what is the cost of supporting two TP400s versus four RR turboprops? The huge well established supply chain for Hercules and its RR engines is hard to beat. Basically Airbus is proposing a tactical lifter that has to compete with two excellent albeit somewhat different tactical cargo planes. Worse still, potential customers are just as likely to opt for Russian or Chinese alternatives that will certainly be less expensive. In summary this A200 seems like high risk and R&D money should be directed at the commercial market to take advantage of Boeing’s current vulnerabilities.
At this point I am not sure the Prop vs fan should even be an issue.
2 engines does tend to simplify maintenance and repair it’s also more fuel efficient in general. but really this is I suspect more about European military industrial independence and age.
Well the C130J has the established supply chain it’s not European. The engines may be RR and that maybe “European” but not EU or rather as EU as Euroturboprop and The airframe is American.
That’s likely to rub some the wrong way. Farther at this point C130J is going on 30 years old. Its development program started in 94 based on an already at that point 40 year old product C130 dating to 1954. I mean we pick on the 737MAX for its age for but the first 737 dates from 67.
so we are talking about an 70 year old base design.The USAF has been shopping a future C130 replacement off and on for the last 20 years at this point. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that Europe wants one.
Particularly France whom has a habit of wanting to Euro centralize defense programs & Airbus whom is the primary potential beneficiary here. As they can use the A400M as the stepping stone to its little sister.
But let’s for a moment consider the alternatives. Or rather Alternative. C390 is a great choice I feel that if anyone in the free world including the United States was to look at buying a C130 replacement C390 should be top of the list. yet it’s very much a new world product.
The Engines are American. Well half American a quarter Japanese and a quarter German also they are old engines. The family dates to the 1980s.
The Airframe is a consortium of Latin American companies and Boeing. Now Embraer has shown a happiness in joint venture and licensing so maybe that could be done but that doesn’t exactly mean that it’s a European product anymore.
The only other existing in about the right size class would have been the AN178 but Ukraine… Perhap post war Antonov might be able to bounce back but that’s a huge If. Even the engines are in question now as they were Ukrainian too.
Every other plane in the class is either Russian, Chinese or the wrong size. The A400M and the Kawasaki C2 are the same size in the 30+ ton payload and this is supposed to sit under them.
The C27J/G222, C295, Cn235 too small.
Of course this program isn’t aimed to crank something out today but in the mid term future of the next decade. That’s plenty of time for new ideas.
