Airbus A400M (Tactical-Transport Aircraft): Development for Aerial Wildland Firefighting in Europe

Direct link to video from Safran on YouTube 

Direct link to video from Prop Clear on YouTube

I got interested in the Airbus A400M, a  large tactical airlift aircraft that is used in a few European countries after reading the July-August  2024 edition of Aerial Fire. Airbus has a webpage for the A400M with specifications that may be found on this webpage. The Aerial Fire article may be found here (I am not sure how long this link will be active). In addition to its use as a tactical aircraft, air to air refueling, medical evacuation, and carrying paratroopers, the aircraft can be used to fight wildfires with the addition of a modular tanking system similar to that used by MAFFS in the United States. The A400M drop tank, possibly still in the testing phase in Europe, can drop about 20,000 liters or 5,000 gallons. According to the July-August 2024 Aerial Fire article on the C130 and A400M

Many European Air Powers have selected the Airbus A400M as a replacement for their C-130 and other medium-lift tactical transport aircraft. Some of them including France and Spain suffer from massive wildfires annually, thus they intend to use their A400Ms in the way the MAFFS program utilizes them for the Forest Service in the US. An A400M can carry 81,570 lbs of maximum payload while this is 47,399 lbs for C-130J/J-30. This made it necessary for Airbus to design and develop a new firefighting module capable of carrying larger amounts of water and retardant to meet the needs of air forces already operating A400Ms.

With the growing need for firefighting capability of medium-lift cargo aircraft of the world’s air forces and as MAFFS II was integrated into Embraer C-390A Millennium for use by the Brazilian Air Force, Airbus decided to design and develop a special roll-in/roll-out module for installation on A400M. This not only could help some of its current customers and operators such as Spanish, German, and French Air Forces to utilize these aircraft for firefighting operations but also help marketing and selling it in the market.

I think the AirBus A400 can play an important role in aerial firefighting in Europe and other countries where the A400 is being used. I look forward to learning more about the A400.