Airbus ‘Grizzly’ forced to miss Paris air show

The Toulouse-based plane-maker Airbus has been forced to abandon the planned flypast of it new A400M troop carrier at the Paris Air Show today. It is the latest setback in the production of the huge - and hugely expensive - turbo-prop plane (above).

Production was already four years behind schedule, after a plague of delays and squabbles, when a gearbox problem was detected, leading to today's cancellation.

Nicknamed the 'Grizzly' - though the RAF intends to call it the Atlas - the whole project came close to being cancelled last year before Britain, France, Germany and four other customer nations agreed to inject a further €3.5bn into its production. The project has now cost more than €20bn.

It is not certain whether the gearbox problem can be sorted out in time for a flypast at Farnborough next month. Domingo Urena-Raso, Airbus Military chief executive, said "flight test requirements are very demanding at the moment".

Airbus and parent company EADS have hopes of selling 500 A400Ms.

Read a full report at the Daily Telegraph. ·