EADS rolls out tanker demonstrator

Published: Jan 13, 2006
Source: www.flightinternational.com



EADS has moved a step closer to launching flight trials of the advanced refuelling boom system (ARBS) which provides the cornerstone of its five-aircraft tanker programme in Australia and the basis for a proposal to replace some of the US Air Force’s Boeing 707-based KC-135s.

The first aircraft to be equipped with the new boom technology (pictured above) – an EADS-owned Airbus A310 demonstrator – was rolled out from the company’s Getafe plant near Madrid on 23 December and will soon begin a qualification campaign expected to total some 300-400 flight hours. EADS’s Military Transport Aircraft Division, which had planned to fly the demonstrator for the first time in mid-2005, says its original schedule has been delayed not by “major incidences, but by normal ones derived from a programme of this complexity.”continue..