Finnish Company To Design, Deliver Structures For Military Transport

Development work continues on Airbus's A400M military transport plane, with Airbus's announcement that Patria Aerostructures Business Unit has been selected to design and deliver the A400M vertical tail plane tip fairing to the European aerospace consortium. Peak production rate will be some 30 aircraft per year -- with deliveries scheduled between 2006-2021.

Patria, an international Aerospace and Defence Group with significant positions in the Baltic region, is owned by the Finnish government and EADS -- parent company of Airbus.

The Airbus A400M is the first large European military transport aircraft to be built as a multi-national project. The launch nations have ordered a total of 180 aircraft and Airbus expects to sell at least another 200 aircraft to other export customers.

The fact that Patria was granted this important order goes well in line with Patria's business philosophy: to deliver internationally competitive solutions to global markets based on own specialist know-how and partnerships. Patria was chosen to deliver the wing spoilers to the world's largest passenger airplane Airbus A380 already in 2001, contract value totalling EUR 425 million", says Mr Jorma Wiitakorpi, Patria's CEO and President.

"The now granted work package is a perfect match with our goal to design and build advanced composite structures and follows our strategy laid in 2001. The amount of composite structures will play a more and more important role in new aircraft types", says Mr Seppo Sepp�l�, Executive Vice President.

Patria's Aerostructures Business Unit designs and delivers advanced composite structures for aircraft and satellites and is actively involved in composite technology development programs.

FMI: www.patria.fi, www.airbusmilitary.com