Airbus A400M Makes Long-awaited First Flight
The first Airbus Military A400M military airlifter (MSN 1) made its first flight today, taking off at 10:15 a.m.

The first Airbus Military A400M military airlifter (MSN 1) made its first flight today, taking off at 10:15 a.m. local time (0915 UTC) from Seville, Spain, for a three-hour, 47-minute flight, according to EADS. The six-person crew, led by Edward Strongman, Airbus chief test pilot, military, said the aircraft and its four Europrop International TP400D turboprop engines performed as expected.
The original first flight had been targeted for early last year. The EU20 billion ($29.5 billion) program is reportedly suffering from cost overruns amounting to about EU2.3 billion ($3.4 billion).

“We have had a successful first flight,” said Strongman, “The takeoff performance was impressive, we explored a lot of the operational flight envelope, and it was a delight to operate in such a well designed cockpit, with its easy interface to all the normal and military systems.”