Euroflag

Euroflag was a collaboration of European aerospace companies formed for the development of the Future Large Aircraft project which was eventually to result in the Airbus A400M Atlas. Development eventually moved under the stewardship of Airbus Defence and Space.

This article is about the group of companies. For the flag, see European flag.

Euroflag
IndustryAerospace
PredecessorFIMA
FoundedMid-1989[1]
DefunctJanuary 1999 (1999-01)
Successor
Headquarters
Rome
,
Italy
ProductsFuture Large Aircraft

History

Origins

The project began as the Future International Military Airlifter (FIMA) group. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was set up on 16 December 1982 by France's Aérospatiale, British Aerospace, Lockheed of the United States, and West Germany's Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm to develop a replacement for the C-130 Hercules and C-160 Transall. Varying requirements and the complications of international politics caused slow progress.[2] A new FIMA agreement was created with the four original participants and new members Aeritalia (predecessor of Italy's Alenia Aeronautica) and Spain's Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (CASA) on 3 December 1987, which was the expiration date of the original FIMA agreement.[3]: 35  By May 1989, Lockheed was deep into the planning of a second-generation C-130 that would become a competitor to a FIMA aircraft[2]: 114  (the C-130J Super Hercules) despite having invested over US$60 million in FIMA-related studies.[4] On 6 June 1989, Aérospatiale announced that the five European members had formed Euroflag to replace FIMA, and that Lockheed was no longer a participant to create the new military transport because the other members did not want to commit to a specific American partner yet.[1]

Formation

In July 1991 with the addition of Alenia Aeronautica, CASA, OGMA, and TAI of Turkey the Future International Military Airlifter group became Euroflag, European future large aircraft group.[5][6] a joint-venture company based in Rome.[7]

Succession

1995 saw the FLA military transport project in charge of requirement-definition and selection processes with Airbus Military eventually taking over the project.[8]

Participants

References
  1. Betts, Paul (7 June 1989). "Airbus to develop 'stretched' A-320". Financial Times. No. 30862. p. 26. ISSN 0307-1766.
  2. Empson, Derek K. (1997). "III. European Future Large Aircraft". In Noor, Ahmed Khairy; Venneri, Samuel L. (eds.). Future Aeronautical and Space Systems. pp. 105–116. ISBN 9781600864254.
  3. Current, projected military aircraft programs reviewed (PDF). Military: Federal Republic of Germany. West Europe (Report). JPRS report. Vol. JPRS-WER-88-031. Translated by Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS). Bonn, West Germany (published 23 June 1988). Wehrtechnik. May 1988. pp. 32–39. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 June 2022.
  4. "Western Europe: Military aerospace". Oxford Analytica Daily Brief Service. 12 June 1989. ISSN 0142-6540. ProQuest 192418314.
  5. Díez, López; Tornell, Asenjo (3 October 2018). "A400M aircraft. Design Requirements & Conceptual Definition" (PDF). Airbus. Historical background of A400M (1). Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 September 2019.
  6. "About the Atlas (A400M)". Royal Air Force. Archived from the original on 25 July 2019. Retrieved 19 September 2019.
  7. "Euroflag". Flight International. 6 October 1993. pp. 42–43. Archived from the original on 31 December 2012. Retrieved 22 September 2019.
  8. Nini & Kübler (2013), p. 15.

Sources
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