The fifth Airbus Military A400M military airlifter has made its first flight.

Gary Parsons - 20-Dec-2011

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Airbus Military image

December 20: The fifth Airbus Military A400M military airlifter has made its first flight, marking the full fleet of Grizzly development aircraft is now in the air.

Known as Grizzly 5, the aircraft took off from Seville, Spain with a take-off weight of 125 tonnes at 08:55 local time (GMT+1) and landed back at Seville two hours and ten minutes later. Experimental Test Pilot Christophe Marchand captained the flight, supported by Experimental Test Pilot Etienne Miche-de-Malleray. The crew also included Test Flight Engineer Jean-Paul Lambert and Flight Test Engineers Ludovic Girard and Cesar Gonzales-Gomez.

The test fleet has now completed more than 2,500 hours of the 3,700 hour flight-test programme leading to first delivery. Grizzly 5 carries a light flight-test instrumentation load and will be primarily dedicated to electromagnetic interference (EMI)-testing, cargo development, operational demonstrations and extreme cold weather trials.

The Grizzly fleet will immediately start 2012 with an aggressive test programme, including an increasing proportion of military tests in preparation for first delivery around the turn of the year 2012/2013.

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