Douglas Barrie/LONDON
THE EUROFLAG Future Large Aircraft (FLA) management agency will be wound up in May, but the partner nations and Airbus Industrie are struggling to have a replacement industrial organisation ready in time to meet this target date.
Establishing the FLA programme under the auspices of Airbus is viewed as critical by several of the participating nations and is one of the key criteria in a UK decision to rejoin the programme.
Senior sources, however, indicate that negotiations between the major FLA and Airbus industrial partners are proving more difficult than expected. The result may be that the May target date is not met.
Sources claim that there is a divergence of opinion between the French and German Airbus partners over how the FLA programme should be structured.
Daimler Benz Aerospace Airbus says only that, as far as the FLA and Airbus are concerned, the aim is still to make the decision in May.
An appropriate legal structure for Italian participation, since it is not a partner in Airbus, also needs to be established.
Airbus is understandably not keen to take on an " unknown quantity" when the Airbus Industry Military Aircraft company is established.
Sources close to the programme stress that the industrial partners are determined that the management structure be set up effectively.
A quick and successful move to put the programme on a commercial footing is being viewed, at least by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), as a litmus test for the programme's future.
In aiming to rejoin the programme, which it left at the end of the 1980s, the UK MoD wants to see it run on a commercial footing to keep costs down.
The configuration of the FLA aircraft is also due to be completed by May and submitted to the participating nations. Some senior UK officials have expressed concern that the programme may be moving in the wrong direction.
The FLA's cabin height has already been reduced, from 4m to 3.85m, and there are indications of pressure for this to be shrunk further.
Sources also suggest that, in an effort to keep costs down, a reduction in the aircraft's cruise speed is being suggested in some quarters.
UK sources point out that this is taking the FLA toward the Lockheed C-130J Hercules 2 in terms of performance and lift capacity, rather than placing the aircraft clearly between the C-130J and the much larger McDonnell Douglas C-17 Globemaster III.
Source: Flight International
