Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220-239)
MR FABRICE
BRÉGIER, MR
FRANCISCO FERNÁNDEZ
SÁINZ, MR
RICHARD THOMPSON,
AND MR
CHARLES PATERSON
22 MAY 2007
Q220 Mr Crausby: In your memorandum
to us you refer to difficulties faced by Airbus on the A380. How
are these difficulties impacting upon the A400M programme, if
they are at all?
Mr Brégier: You know that
the A380 is facing difficulties in the production phase. We have
had big problems in what we call the harnesses of the cabin because
we did not develop the appropriate set of tools at that time.
But the A380 development is complete. The A380 was certified by
both European EASA and American FA, our fitness agencies, in December
last year, so the development is over. A400M is in the middle
of a full-scale development, so the first thing which is very
clear is that we do not use the same resources. As an example,
we have decided to bring additional resources on the A400M. We
have the equivalent of 6,500 full-time equivalent headcount working
on the development programme, which is in excess of about 1,500
compared to our previous plan, because we want to keep the programme
on track The second point: we have also learned the lessons of
our difficulties on the A380. As was mentioned previously, we
went through an external audit. That helped us, first of all,
to check that the A400M design was without failure but we had
also to take care of some risks and so put in place a mitigation
plan which three years before the first delivery of the aircraft
makes sense. It is about reinforcing the programme management.
It is about making sure that we use a harmonised set of tools
in the development—which was the case and which is totally
different from the A380—and it is also about not rushing
in the final assembly line before making sure we have sub-assemblies
which are mature enough to avoid a bottleneck in this assembly
line. These are the main actions we have undertaken. I think the
crisis on the A380 opened our eyes within Airbus and we had to
take all the possible actions to avoid another crisis on a big
priority programme like A400M for Airbus and for EADS overall.
Q221 Mr Crausby: Can we be absolutely
assured that a commercial aircraft will not have priority over
the military aircraft programmes?
Mr Brégier: I think what
I said regarding the allocation of resources is a good example.
We have put more than 1,500 people on top of what was expected.
I can tell you that we consider A400M as a key programme for Airbus.
Airbus is also part of EADS and you should know that this is the
biggest defence programme under the responsibility of EADS. The
military activities of Airbus are for us a big opportunity to
grow our business and to grow it in a profitable way. This is
exactly what Boeing did perfectly well, and you are probably aware
that Boeing, A400M, FSTA, are also part of a competition for a
US tanker. It means that we spend more money, we invest more in
military derivative aircraft off the Airbus platform. So you should
not worry about this risk of prioritisation and, again, A400M
is on its way. We are reinforcing the teams and the A380 problems
have helped us to find additional actions to secure the development
of this exacting programme.
Q222 Mr Crausby: The EADS initiated
a review of the A400M programme and identified several critical
risk areas. Can you tell us how these critical risk areas are
being addressed?
Mr Brégier: The critical
risk areas which you identify were more towards the sub-systems
of the aircraft: the engine, for instance, the military systems
with a lack of maturity, and also the necessity to slightly redesign
the engine to get more power. These actions have been taken with
the main suppliers. We have reviewed with them to monitor the
progress. As I said, we have also slightly delayed the entry in
the final assembly line, because you should know that when we
have to fix a problem on a sub-system, when we do it in the plans
it takes one hour, when we do it on the final assembly line it
could well take three/four hours because it is much more complex.
In fact, we have decided to look at what is important, which is
the delivery of the aircraft and to try to minimise the risk with
this milestone and not to rush to meet an interim milestone which
was a bit artificial. These are the actions we have taken. We
have also optimised the flight test plan, which we will be starting
at the beginning of next year, so as to allow additional buffers
to recover the delay of its entry to a final assembly line.
Q223 Mr Crausby: Are these problems
likely to result in further delays or affect the performance of
the aircraft?
Mr Brégier: No, we do not
think so. Regarding the performance of the aircraft, we consider
that we will deliver the committed performance which has been
signed in the contract.
Mr Sáinz: Additionally,
over the weeks, we have studied and we are very closely following
the certification and our moderation of the aircraft—because
this aircraft, as you know, has civil certification plus military
moderation. The six nations, working with us, have developed all
the processes and procedures and the rules to follow. This is
an important issue in the flight test, in which even the nations
have to be prepared to work with us very closely, because the
certification and the moderation too is part of our job, not only
in our eyes but also in the eyes of the nations.
Q224 Chairman: When do you think
this aircraft is going to enter service with UK armed forces?
Mr Thompson: Mr Chairman, our
understanding is March 2011 but of course this is a date which
does not just depend on industry. We are contracted to deliver
aircraft by certain time periods in the contract and those are
the things against which we define our performance. The in-service
date is something which is declared by the Air Force and the Ministry
of Defence and it draws upon a number of factors which are outside
the contractors control, like the training of crews, the infrastructure
being in place, the requisite number of airplanes being in place
and the squadron being up and running and operational. The linkage
is through the contract on us. We believe that we are on track
to deliver those first seven aircraft in time. I believe the last
one of those seven aircraft is due for delivery in December 2010
and that would enable, therefore, the Ministry of Defence to declare
the in-service date by the due date.
Q225 Mr Jenkins: You have a contract
at the present time to deliver the first French aircraft in two-and-a-half
years' time. Will you meet that, do you think?
Mr Thompson: The first delivery
to the French Air Force is due for October 2009. At the moment
we see no reason in our planning as to why that will be delayed
in any way. The three months that Mr Brégier spoke about
in terms of deliberately delaying the start of final assembly
to avoid bottlenecks down the line, pre-supposes that we will
have a more efficient final assembly process, and, as Mr Brégier
mentioned, there are also some buffers in the flight test programme
and we believe that is fully recoverable. Having said that, we
must not at any point become complacent and we must manage probably
the most difficult phase of any aircraft programme which is the
certification and in this case the military qualification phase
of the programme with great diligence obviously. We are having
daily discussions with the certification and qualification authorities,
which includes the EASA, of course, for the civil certification
and the military certification body which has been set up by the
participating nations. Those plans are well in hand and we believe
as we speak that there is no reason why we should face any delays
on those deliveries.
Q226 Mr Jenkins: You have said that
the certification process does take some time. How long do you
think it will take you to certify this vehicle commercially and
militarily?
Mr Thompson: The flight test programme,
as Mr Brégier says, will start at the beginning of next
year and first delivery to the French Air Force is October 2009,
so that gives you an indication. It is almost a two-year programme.
The programme has been designed at the moment to be quite a conservative
programme. One of the lessons we have learned from the A380 is
that in fact the programme that we have designed for A400M has
elements of slack in that programme; so there are buffers, as
Mr Brégier mentioned. However, again, we must not be complacent,
because this is not just a civil certification, there is a military
qualification as well, but we have designed the flight test programme
so that the two can run in parallel.
Mr Sáinz: May I add something
for the benefit of everybody. When you say you make a certification,
like this aircraft, and introducing civil rules, you are now doing
one thing after the other, okay. But when you open the envelope
of the aircraft, you combine in the flight test several things,
all right. That means you can be at the same time doing a flight
test for a civil purpose and a military purpose as well.
Q227 Mr Jenkins: I am trying to get
in my head some sort of timetable in so far as you expect this
plane to fly. Will it be starting next year?
Mr Thompson: Early 2008.
Q228 Mr Jenkins: So in January, February,
March 2008 this will be flying.
Mr Thompson: Correct.
Q229 Mr Jenkins: And then the production
line will be up and running, all the bottlenecks will be sorted
out and it will flow through, so that we can expect planes to
come off at a regular pace.
Mr Thompson: Yes. There are five
flight test aircraft which will go through the final assembly
process and there is a sixth aircraft which will also go through
that process which will be held back as a spare if we need it.
Those aircraft will be instrumented, as you can imagine, and those
are the aircraft that will be used as part of the flight test
programme for certification purposes and qualification purposes.
But certification of course starts before the aircraft even flies.
We have quite comprehensive test benches on the ground. In fact
one of the key milestones in the contract we have with OCCAR is
the presentation and acceptance of something we call an "iron
bird", which is running on schedule at the moment and will
be delivered and presented on time—we are fully confident
on that—which effectively is a facsimile of the aircraft
on the ground. That process will kick off the certification process
before even an airplane is taken to the air.
Q230 Mr Jenkins: If you are rolling
planes off, to start with, for certification, you are not going
to cease production until they are certified; you are going to
continue production. If the first one is March 2008 and then they
start the trials, there should be no reason why by 2011 we do
not have sufficient planes off to meet Britain's needs.
Mr Thompson: Absolutely. That
is in our plan. That is how we see it. We use production tooling
to manufacture the first airplane. There is no gap. It is a continuous
phase. Although the first aircraft will go into the flight test
programme, simultaneously we will also be producing aircraft for
action delivery to our customers.
Q231 Mr Jenkins: By this time next
year if you do not have that first plane flying, and we are doing
tests and we have a problem, then we can get concerned from that
point.
Mr Thompson: If we are delayed
in the start of a flight test programme by anything more than
a couple of months I would say then that there is cause for concern
and we would be the first ones to raise that issue with OCCAR.
Q232 Chairman: We have heard that
the French and Turkish requirements come before the UK's but otherwise
we are pretty early in the programme, is there any scope for diverting
any of those aircraft to the UK if we were to need them early?
Is the French requirement and the Turkish requirement quite as
urgent as ours?
Mr Thompson: My understanding
is that their requirement is urgent, particularly the French one,
who only operate some very old C-160s and C-130s at the moment.
They are almost in a worse position than the Royal Air Force in
terms of ownership of modern assets and really need these airplanes
very urgently. There is not just the issue of having to "swap
slots", as we say in the industry, between one country and
another but also the configuration of these airplanes is fairly
well designed and fixed at the moment and we would have to start
changing configuration from what the French Air Force has specified
to what the Royal Air Force has specified. We might enter into
a counterproductive cycle there, in that we would probably end
up doing modification to those airplanes that would actually save
you no time at the end of the day.
Q233 Chairman: You might get into
A380 problems.
Mr Thompson: Precisely.
Q234 Mr Jenkins: There are different
configurations. People who intend to fight together need an interoperable
system. Why are we now talking about different systems? It is
cost-effective to have the same systems throughout, so why?
Mr Thompson: That is a very valid
question. There is something called a "common standard aircraft"
which is, I suppose, the highest common denominator of aircraft
across the fleets from the six nations, and that is, believe you
me, a substantial portion. About 90 per cent, of the airplane
will be common. We must not get too worried, however, because
when we talk about configuring an aircraft for a particular country
we are doing so with what we call "configuration items"
which are common across the six nations as well in the majority
of cases. There are only very few examples of equipments which
will go on a particular airplane that will not be known to the
other nations. When I talk about configuration, that is that I
want aircraft numbered 1-10 delivered with defensive aid sub-systems,
for example; aircraft 10-20 delivered with casualty evacuation
equipment, for example, or extra oxygen bottles to deal with evacuation
purposes, or whatever the configuration item might be; but it
is drawn from a list of common configuration items. Therefore,
although we are going to have separate configurations, it is still
largely fundamentally a common programme.
Q235 Mr Jenkins: It does not add
to the cost at all as far as the requirements each nation would
put in there.
Mr Thompson: The fixed-price contract
includes the non-recurring development of those configuration
items as well, not just the basic aircraft, yes, so that is already
budgeted and in the contract planning.
Q236 Mr Jenkin: You are being helpful
but may I press you a little further on this question of what
individual nations might uniquely require. Does that flexibility
within the overall design authority, fixed through you, give flexibility
to nations to stick secret equipment (equipment the content of
which cannot be disclosed) onto your aircraft? Is that a problem?
Mr Thompson: I do not see any
reason why it should ever become a problem. There are means of
setting up structures that will cater for that sort of requirement.
The biggest problem is that such a requirement might be, for example,
"UK eyes only". People who are British citizens with
British security clearance can work on that particular modification,
let us say, and that would not be a problem because you would
have an organisation set up in the United Kingdom that could interface
between that particular special requirement and the design authority
that would say whether such a modification was safe or not safe
to perform on that and there would exist a security wall between
the two.
Q237 Mr Jenkin: There would not be
any documentation which appears beyond "UK eyes only"
that would give away, perhaps, vital information about that equipment
or the power sources for that equipment.
Mr Thompson: The closest I can
draw upon in terms of an example is that we have already exported
this airplane, as you know, to South Africa and Malaysia. Clearly
there are NATO specific items on this airplane that are not exportable
to those two countries and we have managed and we will manage
to support those aircraft for those countries. We have managed
to make those countries aware of many of the issues associated
with the programme without at any time putting at risk the security
of NATO countries.
Q238 Mr Jenkin: But that is about
taking something off the aircraft, not those countries putting
something on.
Mr Thompson: In the case of South
Africa we have to add some data link equipment which is specific
to South Africa and which South Africans hold very dear to them
because they contain algorithms which are South African developed
algorithms. We will be able to manage that without necessarily—
Q239 Mr Jenkin: Without you knowing
or anyone else in Europe knowing.
Mr Thompson: Correct. That will
he handled by South Africans. We will provide technical support
but we will never get sight of documentation or anything that
might put South African security at risk, so there are structures
that allow this.
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