PARIS, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Europe's biggest military plane project, fraught with delays and in-fighting, faces a critical test as the A400M's mammoth turbo prop engine prepares for a secretive flight next week from a quiet corner of east England.
Coming on the heels of UK defence cuts, the operation is key for the credibility of Airbus parent EADS as it tries to renegotiate a loss-making 20 billion euro contract for the A400M and project itself as a reliable global defence supplier.
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The West's biggest turbo prop was developed by a group of engine makers assembled to keep high-tech jobs inside Europe, overriding the planemaker's preference for an imported engine.
But translating political choices into a flyable power system has proved an engineering nightmare and so far the only things flying across the Cambridgeshire countryside are recriminations among the partners involved in the project.
Engine makers blame both Airbus and each other for faults in testing the engine. Airbus blames the engine makers for failing to deliver as promised and governments for changing the rules.
That has kept a prototype A400M inside its hangar in Seville months after it was unveiled to the King of Spain and hundreds of top brass. Its first flight has been delayed indefinitely pending progress on the engine tests near Cambridge, England.
The engine tests are being kept under wraps following months of tensions over delivery delays between Airbus Military, its engine makers and some of the seven European NATO nations behind the 25-year-old project to build a new heavy transporter.
But industry sources say the plane being used for the test, a modified C-130 transporter, should make its first flight with a Europrop TP400-D6 engine next week depending on the weather.
The test will be carried out by replacing one of the C-130's own engines with the larger new engine and taking it aloft.
EADS and Airbus Military declined to comment.
The engine trial will be the toughest test of whether rival companies ordered to work together are able to bring complex parts into a whole -- and from there how effectively Europe can boast integration when bidding for foreign military business.
Haunted by delays to the Airbus A380 superjumbo, EADS and U.S. partner Northrop Grumman hope to persuade an incoming Obama administration to revive a $35 billion Pentagon air tanker order, successfuly challenged by Boeing this year.
The United States is also a potential market for the A400M.
Any significant addition to 18-24 months of overall A400M delays could force EADS to add to 1.7 billion euros of charges and face the risk of cancellations as governments cut costs.
So far 192 A400Ms have been ordered from the original seven nations -- Germany, France, Britain, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg and Turkey -- and export customers Malaysia and South Africa.
The most serious problem facing developers next week is the way the engine talks to control software known as the FADEC.
These 275,000 lines of software code -- four times more complex than the electronic brain of the world's biggest civil jet engine -- exemplify past arguments over political meddling.
Critics say the company promoted by Germany to produce the FADEC, Germany's MTU, was not the most specialised. Three sources close to the project said they were also worried about delays in documentation, which could delay approvals.
An MTU official said the FADEC is in working order and that it is common practice to document software as it evolves. Other engine makers include Rolls-Royce and Safran.
Even the choice of plane used for testing has been criticised after part of the C-130 melted in ground tests.
"It is way too small. They should have used an A340," a senior industry official said, referring to the large Airbus jet.
POLITICAL FALLOUT
Industry analysts said the disputes had shown the limits of of treating big military contracts like commercial jet deals.
In a bid to develop Europe's own capacity for dropping troops into combat zones without repeating the cost overruns, delays and compromise surrounding the Eurofighter; A400M nations enforced a commercial contract with penalties
for late delivery.
But EADS says its efforts to absorb risk were stymied by a political decision to involve all of Europe's key engine makers. It had wanted an engine from Pratt & Whitney Canada.
EADS is refusing to give a shedule for deliveries until agreement can be found on sharing the risks of the programme, a position which puts it at odds with governments, especially Germany.
While France has expressed willingness to negotiate, an increasingly assertive Germany on defence and economic matters has taken a hard line and told EADS to cough up on penalties.
Military analysts say that could be a tactic designed to obtain a cut in Germany's 60 plane orders. Other possible points for negotiation include a cutback in expensive customisation.
Defence industry precedents and the rapid tilt towards government bailouts and sensitivities over jobs due to the financial crisis suggest a compromise will be found soon.
The casualty of the A400M row could be efforts to spare taxpayers the financial risk of military projects, especially now that many nations are more suspicious of the rule of markets. (Additional reporting by Kerstin Doerr; Editing by Chris Wickham)
Copyright 2008 Reuters