12 November 2015 by Guy Martin - defenceWeb

The Ghana Air Force has acquired a third C295 transport aircraft from Airbus Defence and Space, confirming plans announced last year. The company is finalising three new C295 contracts in East and West Africa, with two already having been signed.

Ghana’s third C295 was seen at Airbus’s final assembly plant in Seville, Spain, in late October.

Ghana received its first C295 in November 2011 and the second in April 2012 as part of the Air Force’s modernisation drive. One of the C295s was used to support the United Nations-led MINUSMA mission in Mali. In November 2014 Ghana’s president John Dramani Mahama announced that Ghana would acquire an additional C295, in addition to other aircraft, including five Super Tucanos, Mi-17s and four Z-9s.

Antonio Rodriguez Barberan, Head Of Sales, Military Aircraft at Airbus Defence and Space, said that two African C295 contracts have been signed while the third depends on certain financial obligations being met. He told defenceWeb that he sees sales of 50 aircraft in the next decade to the continent.

At the moment Algeria has six C295s in service, Ghana three and Egypt has ordered 24. Airbus is currently still manufacturing C295s for Egypt.

Barberan said he sees Egypt as having a need for additional C295s and said that the North African country is an important customer for Airbus. The Egyptian Air Force is an enthusiastic operator of the type, having accumulated 10 000 flight hours in its first four years of operation, with several pilots reaching 1 000 flight hours.

In total, the 139 C295s flying in the world have accumulated more than 230 000 flight hours while the CN235 fleet of 236 aircraft has accumulated more than 1.35 million flight hours.

Elsewhere, Airbus is hoping to sell its C295 to Canada to meet its requirement for a Buffalo and C-130 replacement. The aircraft would be configured for search and rescue and maritime surveillance. The C295 is the only finalist in India’s competition for an Avro replacement and may be produced locally in India, and Barberan said that he expects to see more C295 orders from Latin America in 2016.

Airbus is offering the C295 in a multitude of guises, including waterbomber, gunship, VIP transport, ground surveillance, signals intelligence, air-to-air refuelling, maritime patrol, search and rescue, oil spill dispersant and airborne early warning and control platform.

10 June 2014 by Guy Martin - defenceWeb

Airbus Defence and Space is still hopeful South Africa will buy A400M strategic transport aircraft and is promoting it and the C295 light transport to the South African Air Force (SAAF).

According to Antonio Rodriguez-Barberan, Vice President Commercial at Airbus Military, the company is “absolutely interested” in offering the A400M as a replacement for the SAAF’s C-130 Hercules, which are due to be retired in 2020. “We want to be back in South Africa. Yes, there is a need for maritime patrol and a certain need for tactical and strategic transport.”

He told defenceWeb Airbus is keeping its work packages with Denel and Aerosud in place not just because they do a good job manufacturing A400M components but because Airbus is hoping for an order from South Africa. Airbus kept South Africa’s A400M workshare in place even after the government cancelled an order for eight A400Ms in 2009. Denel and Aerosud manufacture parts for the A400M, including the wing to fuselage fairing and other large components.

Barberan said South Africa has a need for an aircraft like the A400M, especially since its diplomatic and regional ambitions require it to move cargo and equipment to places like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for peacekeeping missions or to places like Sudan for humanitarian missions. Rather than chartering aircraft like the An-124 and Il-76, an A400M could fly supplies directly to where needed most, even if only an unprepared airstrip is available.

He said the A400M was not competing on price but on capability terms. Barberan estimated South Africa would need four A400Ms as a first step to establishing a modern airlift facility.

The first export production slots for the A400M will become available in 2017 and it will be around three years after an order is placed that aircraft could be delivered so if South Africa is to retire the C-130 in 2020, it needs to make a decision within the next few years.

Barberan said he hoped to have an A400M export customer by the end of this year. Airbus began actively promoting the aircraft for export last year and hopes to sell between 300 and 400 on the export market over the next 30 years, capturing a 50% market share.

Airbus is also promoting the CN235/C295 to the SAAF to meet its maritime surveillance requirements. The company brought out a C295 in 2012, which was demonstrated to the local air force. However, Barberan could not say when the SAAF might place an order for a new maritime surveillance platform, especially as funding is problematic. His company is aiming to sell the maritime patrol variant to South Africa, which features sensors such as a radar and electro-optical pods as well as a roll on/roll off mission suite that would allow the aircraft to be used purely in the cargo role as well.

Guy Martin is in Spain as a guest of Airbus Defence and Space.

Mar. 25, 2014 - By JOSÉ HIGUERA – Defense News

SANTIAGO — Airbus Defence and Space and Chile’s Empresa Nacional Aeronautica (ENAER), the state-owned aerospace firm under Air Force administration, signed a cooperation agreement Tuesday expanding their 30-year joint business arrangement for maintenance and upgrade services.

The agreement will increase cooperation and technology transfers for maintenance of C-295, CN-235 and C-212 transport planes, as well as for upgrading of A-36T Aviojet training and light strike planes.

The agreement was signed by Antonio Rodriguez-Barberan, the head of military sales at Airbus Defence and Space, and Chilean Air Force Brig. Gen. Henry Cleveland, CEO of ENAER.

The signing took place during the opening day of the FIDAE International Aerospace Show, the main military and commercial trade aerospace show in South America, which is running here this week.

The agreement with ENAER is part of a push by Airbus Defence and Space to establish a maintenance, repair and overhaul network with preferred partners around the world.

In the case of ENAER, the arrangement will allow the Chilean firm to provide, at the start, maintenance services to operators of the C-212 from Chile as well as other South American nations.

There are about 30 C-212s in service with military operators in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay and Venezuela.

As part of the agreement, ENAER will receive additional support for the maintenance and potential upgrade of the A-36T/C-101 Aviojet training and light strike jets of the Chilean Air Force.

The Chilean firm also maintains C-101 jets in service with the Honduran Air Force.

Rodriguez-Barberan said, “It was a great pleasure for Airbus Defence and Space to sign this cooperation agreement with ENAER, a company with which we have such close historical ties. We are today strengthening not only our cooperation with this company, but with the whole Chilean aerospace industry.”

Cleveland underlined that “this agreement will allow us in ENAER to provide maintenance services that are much needed, both in Chile and in other countries in our region.”

ENAER’s relationship with the European group started in the 1980s, when a number of C-101 jets were locally assembled for service with the Chilean Air Force. Later, the Chilean firm started manufacturing parts for the CN-235 and C-295, as well as providing maintenance services for C-212s

29 November 2013 by Guy Martin – defenceWeb

It appears that the Egyptian Air Force will receive its six remaining C295s on order from Airbus Military, after delivery was earlier halted due to the political crisis there.

Three C295s in Egyptian Air Force colours were seen undergoing test flights at the Seville-San Pablo Airport in Spain near Airbus Military’s facilities there this week, reports Air Forces Daily. One had been painted in white United Nations colours in September and was presumed to be destined for Ghana but earlier this week was seen in Egyptian Air Force colours. (Ghana has two C295s on order and will lease them to the United Nations.)

The Egyptian Air Force has ordered a total of 12 C-295Ms, of which at least five and possibly six have been delivered. An initial three were ordered in October 2010, with deliveries being completed in November and December 2011. Another three were ordered in March last year and another six in January this year.

Airbus Military had planned to deliver this final batch of six by the end of 2013, but on August 28 the Spanish Inter-Ministerial Council on Defence and Dual Use Materiel (JIMDDU) suspended all existing Egyptian defence contracts, saying the move was cautionary and would be reviewed every month.

This move came after the Egyptian military took over from Mohammed Morsi’s democratically elected government on July 3, leading to severe violence and unrest in the country.

Many other countries subsequently suspended military shipments to Egypt, including the United States, the UK, Germany and others. As a result, Egypt is now looking towards Russia to supply its defence hardware.

4 Jun 2013 By Craig Hoyle - FG

With his company within weeks of delivering its first A400M under a European project for 170 of the type, Airbus Military chief executive Domingo Ureña-Raso has for the first time hinted openly at a potential future development programme for a smaller transport aircraft.

To provide the air forces of Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, Turkey and the UK - plus first export customer Malaysia - with a tactical airlifter capable of carrying a maximum payload of 37t, the A400M has been designed to occupy a niche between the USA's smaller Lockheed Martin C-130J and larger Boeing C-17.

Significant product development work is still being conducted on Airbus Military's C295 medium transport, which can carry a cargo of up to 9t. This includes a winglet-equipped production standard to be delivered to customers from 2014, plus a version on offer to several potential buyers with an airborne early warning and control system developed by Israel Aerospace Industries' Elta Systems subsidiary.

Speaking in Seville on 29 May, Ureña-Raso said the company's next development task could be to create an offering to fit below the size of the C-130 Hercules. Possible payload capacities for such a product could be in the 9t area already occupied by the current C295, or in the "16-18t" sector, he said. The latter would pit any such transport in the same broad category as Embraer's turbofan-powered KC-390 transport and tanker, which the Brazilian company says will be able to lift between 16 and 23t, depending on mission type. Embraer's developmental product should be ready for service introduction with the Brazilian air force during 2016.

Despite his hints at Airbus Military's possible future development strategy, Ureña-Raso notes that no such activity will be launched in the short-term, while final assembly of the A400M continues to ramp up and the company also pursues a "second wave" of orders for its Airbus A330-based multi-role tanker transport, and further orders for its C295 product line.

23 May 2012by Guy Martin - defenceWeb

Airbus Military expects to sell 70 light and medium military aircraft to Africa over the next decade, as it shifts it focus to the African continent and other emerging markets. Ghana, Cameroon and Gabon are some of the nations that are in the midst of buying new aircraft or are about to sign, whilst South Africa is a leading potential customer for the C295.

Airbus Military said that countries in sub-Saharan Africa will buy 50 light and medium aircraft over the next ten years, and that countries on the whole continent (excluding those in the Middle East) will purchase a total of 70.

Antonio Rodriguez Barberan, Senior Vice President: Commercial at Airbus, told defenceWeb that Airbus was in very preliminary discussions with Ghana for the acquisition of two more C295 transports. Ghana took delivery of its second C295 on April 25 and has a requirement for another two. Barberan said the Ghana Air Force was making good use of its new aircraft, flying them around Africa. Ultimately, it wants to base two transports in the capital Accra and another two in Tamale. Airbus said that Ghana may order another two C295s next year.

In August last year the contract for Ghana’s two C295s was announced, and the first was delivered in November. The C295s are being used for troop transport, medical evacuation, paratrooping, training and humanitarian operations, including United Nations peace missions.

Barberan said that an impending order for CN235s is coming from Cameroon, which recently signed a contract but had problems financing the new aircraft. A few weeks ago Cameroon obtained financing for the order, which will soon be announced by Airbus Military once it is firmed up.

Meanwhile, Gabon is one of several nations interested in acquiring C295s to be operated on behalf of the United Nations. The United Nations has also expressed interest in acquiring the C-295 to replace its old, inefficient Russian aircraft. Last year the UN invited Airbus to demonstrate the C-295 in the DRC, which Airbus duly did in July. Another demonstration took place this year. The United Nations does not own its own aircraft, but operates aircraft leased by contributor nations. Airbus Military, the United Nations and its partner nations are discussing possible procurement of the C-295, with Gabon emerging as a likely customer.

In October 2010 Egypt signed a contract for three C295s, and received its first in September last year. Airbus Military told journalists at its annual Trade Media Briefing in Spain that Egypt this year placed an order for an additional three C295s.

Airbus recently flew a C295 out to Africa for a demonstration tour, showing the aircraft to Kenya and Tanzania, amongst others. At the moment there is “no real interest” in the C295 from African countries following the tour, but Barberan is confident that orders will materialise. During its demonstration tour, Airbus Military demonstrated the C295 to the South African Air Force in April, in the hopes of receiving orders to fulfil its transport and maritime patrol requirements.

“Airbus Military has a long established partnership with South Africa and the SA Air Force. By bringing the C-295 to South Africa, we are able to demonstrate the aircraft’s capabilities in typical SANDF [South African National Defence Force] mission configurations for tactical transport, medevac, anti-piracy, countersmuggling and Economic Exclusion Zone protection operations,” Barberan said at the time.

On Monday Airbus Military announced that Oman had ordered eight C295s, including five configured as tactical transports and three as maritime patrol aircraft, for delivery in 2013. This setup could be emulated by South Africa, which could acquire the Fully Integrated Tactical System (FITS) mission suite for maritime patrol duties. This comprises a search radar, electro-optical/infrared sensor, magnetic anomaly detector and hardpoints for torpedoes and depth charges.

Head of Airbus Military, Domingo Urena-Raso, yesterday told defenceWeb that there are several key countries his company is targeting in Africa, including Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and South Africa. He said that although most African countries order only a few aircraft, when put together Africa offers a very reasonable volume of business.

Urena-Raso said that South Africa is a market for both the C295 as well as the A400M and that even though the South African government cancelled its previous order, the A400M “will come later” to South Africa. Airbus Military recently started marketing the airlifter to foreign countries, and sent it on a sales tour to Asia and Latin America.

After South Africa ordered the A400M, Denel Saab Aerostructures (Denel Aerostructures today) and other local companies began manufacturing components for the aircraft. Urena-Raso said that Airbus Military was satisfied with Denel’s performance and will continue to work with the company as far as they keep performing. In fact, Airbus Military and Denel Aerostructures have negotiated a new contract that will be signed in the coming weeks and will see Denel increase A400M component production.

Total Airbus Military sales in sub-Saharan Africa to the first quarter of this year include two C295s, six CN235s and 42 C212s with 14 customers in 11 countries.

Guy Martin is in France as a guest of Airbus Military and is attending the Trade Media Briefing 2012.