On 5 Aug 2003 22:35:58 -0700, (Defender in
Tas) wrote:

I was referring to the A-400M which I understood to be close to
deployment and with substantial orders in Europe. Anyone have any
accurate information on this?
NOT EVEN CLOSE. The formal decision to build the thing along with the
necessary budgetary approval from the buyers only has occured within
the last few months. At best deployment is still YEARS away... (which
is why there are fair number of C130J's being leased in Europe)...