The Airbus A400 promises a major upgrade in Europe’s military medium to heavy cargo capability. It also promises to improve the Continent’s firefighting capacity. Nick Baird takes a deep dive into the aircraft and its firefighting promise.

Airbus has confirmed to Air Attack magazine that it is targeting 2026 for the entry into service of its A400M firefighting kit. First announced in 2022, Airbus has continued development and testing with the support of its partners and is expecting to sign the first production contract during 2025. In this article, we take a look at the A400M in the aerial firefighting role, the alternatives, and the likely market for the system once qualified.

Last year brought some relief in Europe after 2023’s devastating wildfire season when Greece and Tenerife were severely affected. However, by contrast, 2024 brought wildfires to the global news cycle due to fires raging for months in California, threatening the Greater Los Angeles area and causing widely reported evacuations of celebrities from their homes.

Availability of large firefighting aircraft is in decline

With the availability of Very Large Air Tankers (VLATs) in decline, the development of a firefighting kit for the A400M cargo aircraft is welcome and timely.  With a substantial 20,000 litre storage tank for water or fire retardant, the A400M firefighting kit offers significant capacity, exceeding that of common firefighting aircraft such as the C-130 Hercules (11,000 litres), Canadair CL415 (6,140 litres) or Air Tractor AT-802/Fire Boss (3,100 litres).  Importantly, the firefighting kit is role equipment and doesn’t require any modification to the airframe, allowing A400M operators to rapidly convert their aircraft for firefighting missions.

The alternative large aerial firefighting aircraft remaining in service are based on ageing Western commercial airframes or Russian military aircraft.  The record as the largest aerial firefighting aircraft was held by the Boeing 747-based ‘Supertankers’ operated by Evergreen International and its successor Global Supertanker Services, with their enormous 74,000-litre capacity.  However, after years of financial difficulties, the company shut down in 2021, and its last remaining aircraft was converted back to cargo configuration for commercial operations.  The Ilyushin Il-76 (49,000 litres capacity) and 10 Tanker’s converted McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 (45,000 litres capacity) now vie for the top spot as the world’s largest operational aerial firefighting aircraft.

 

A firefighting big brother for the C295

The A400M firefighting kit is not Airbus’ first foray into providing an aerial firefighting capability based on its military cargo aircraft.  A firefighting kit is also offered for the smaller C295 aircraft, which is operated by 37 countries worldwide with over 300 aircraft ordered.  After initial trials with Coulson’s gravity-fed RDS (Retardant Delivery System), Airbus switched to a pressurised MAFFS II system from United Aeronautical Corporation as used on the C-130 Hercules and C-27J Spartan.  The MAFFS II system installed on the C295 offers a 5-tonne water or fire retardant capacity, and is also a roll-on/roll-off system for ease of installation and allowing the aircraft to be rapidly re-roled.  MAFFS II was ultimately adopted for the C295 despite a lower capacity than the Coulson RDS because it avoided the need for the aircraft modifications required by the gravity-fed Coulson system.

An ideal platform for aerial firefighting

In many respects, the Airbus A400M is an ideal aircraft for operation as a large aerial firefighter.  As a modern high-speed turboprop with fly-by-wire controls, it combines a high cruise speed (allowing a rapid transit to the fire zone), with good manoeuvrability and handling at low speeds and altitudes; all expected of an aircraft designed for military cargo operations and parachute drops.  It can also operate from austere and unpaved runways, requiring much shorter take-off and landing distances than commercial aircraft of comparable size and capacity.  Its Enhanced Vision System (EVS) and Head-Up Display (HUD) allows safe operation during both day and night, and in degraded visual environments.

Airbus have worked closely with Spanish firefighting experts from 43 Group of the Spanish Air Force and the Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition to develop the A400M firefighting kit.  Simplicity and ease of use have been a priority from the outset to allow existing A400M cargo aircraft to quickly be adapted to the firefighting role as required.

 

A focus on simplicity and ease of use

The system is palletised and loaded onto the aircraft via the rear ramp using the rollers incorporated into the aircraft’s standard floor-based Cargo Handling & Aerial Delivery System and then is restrained in position using existing cargo tie-down points.  Based on trials experience, Airbus estimates that four technicians and a loadmaster can install the kit in around two hours.  The system is gravity-fed rather than pressurised, is manually activated, and requires no electrical, hydraulic or pneumatic connection or supply from the host aircraft.  As a result of this, the system requires no airframe modification or re-certification, allowing any of the existing fleet of A400M multi-mission aircraft to be quickly adapted for aerial firefighting on-demand, incurring only the marginal cost of the kit itself and training of crews.

The storage tank has a capacity of 20,000 litres of fire retardant or water, and discharge is via a pipe secured to the rear ramp of the aircraft which must be lowered prior to release.  The single discharge is initiated manually via a lever operated by the loadmaster, acting in coordination with the aircraft pilot.  Since the initial trials in 2022, Airbus have improved the efficiency of the system and reduced discharge time by over 30%, and demonstrated high concentration drop lines of fire retardant of over 400 metres long on the ground.

 

The fire retardant tank can be re-filled in-situ on the aircraft with the engines still running.  There are two filling ports that can be accessed via the ramp or the two lateral paratroop doors at the rear of the cabin, and with high pressure pumps, the tank can be completely re-filled in less than ten minutes allowing a fast turn-around and return to the fire zone.

Airbus continues to test and develop the firefighting kit, most recently conducting trials in the Guadalajara region of Spain using real fire retardant.  Airbus expects to sign a production contract in 2025, with qualification to be completed and entry into service in 2026.

A ready market amongst the A400M partner nations?

At the time of writing, the A400M program has received 178 orders from ten operators around the world, with the largest fleets in service with partner-nations Germany, France, Spain, the United Kingdom and Turkey.  With the exception of the UK, all of those countries operate existing fixed-wing firefighting fleets or have an established requirement for them, providing a ready market for an A400M firefighting kit.  Moreover, it provides a higher fire retardant storage tank capacity than any other aircraft currently based in Europe.

 

Germany lacks a dedicated aerial firefighting fleet but has called upon German Army CH-53G Super Stallion and Police Puma helicopters to assist in tackling forest fires using Bambi Buckets.  However, in 2022, Germany needed the support of Italian water bomber aircraft when a fire on the Brocken mountain in Harz National Park threatened to burn out of control, and the availability of rotary wing firefighting capacity proved insufficient.  This international assistance was organised by the European Union’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) under the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.  A400Ms equipped with the firefighting kit would provide a simple short-term solution for Germany to gain a fixed-wing aerial firefighting capability.

France operates an established fixed-wing fleet of water bombers comprising twelve Canadair CL-415 ‘Super Scooper’ amphibious aircraft, along with six Bombardier Dash 8 Q400s converted by Cascade Aerospace and three Beechcraft Super King Air 200s.  France did however recently retire its Conair Turbo Firecats (Grumman S-2 Trackers converted for the firefighting role) and might benefit from the additional capacity the A400M can offer.  In March 2025, Airbus announced that they had signed a Letter of Interest with the French General Directorate for Civil Defense and Crisis Management for the A400M firefighting kit, and would conduct flight tests in France during April to demonstrate its capability for tackling forest fires.

Spain maintains a comprehensive aerial firefighting capability led by 43 Group of the Spanish Air Force operating a fleet of Canadair CL-215 and CL-415 scooper aircraft, and with a further seven of the latest DHC-515 variant on order.  This capability is further supplemented by private operators Titan Aerial Firefighting with their Air Tractor AT-802 scoopers, and Babcock with a range of fixed and rotary wing aircraft.  With 43 Group instrumental in the development of the firefighting kit and a growing fleet of A400M aircraft, the Spanish Government is expected to be an early customer for this capability.

Turkey presents an interesting opportunity, with a growing wildfire threat driving calls to increase the size of its fleet of firefighting aircraft while at the same time facing availability issues with some of its existing aircraft.  The backbone of the current Turkish aerial firefighting fleet comprises Canadair CL-215 and Air Tractor AT-802 scoopers.  Turkey has also leased capacity from Russia using Beriev Be-200 aircraft, but that program faces issues due to the use of Ukrainian-manufactured Progress D-436 engines along with the effect of other sanctions.  Turkey has recently renewed its contract with Columbia Helicopters to provide aerial firefighting support using commercially operated Chinook helicopters.  With ten A400M aircraft in service, and another ten on order, the firefighting kit from Airbus would provide a convenient route to significant extra capacity.

 

The UK remains an outlier amongst A400M partner nations in that it has no central Government-facilitated capability for aerial firefighting (beyond a limited capability offered by Royal Air Force helicopters in Cyprus).  Such capability that does exist, is provided on an ad-hoc basis by a small number of private commercial helicopter operators.  However, with the risk of wildfires growing and the fire season starting earlier, the UK government may be forced into action.  By the 6th April 2025, the UK had already suffered 286 wildfire outbreaks, 100 more than the same period in 2022 when the UK experienced a record-breaking heatwave.  With the risk of wildfires unlikely to fall significantly in the foreseeable future, procuring an aerial firefighting capability for the RAF’s 22 A400M aircraft may be a wise investment.

Increasing the utility of a versatile aircraft

The A400M program has suffered its fair share of delays, along with both technical and financial difficulties.  Nonetheless, those issues have largely been overcome, and the aircraft now provides the core heavy lift capability for many European nations, and the range of missions it is cleared for continues to grow.  Demand for aerial firefighting operations is growing across Europe and elsewhere around the world, and for existing A400M operators, the firefighting kit provides a rapid and low-cost means to add significant capacity while retaining the versatility to quickly convert back to cargo operations once the fire is controlled.  When the alternatives are expensively converted civil airliners, or specialist single-mission aircraft such as the Canadair CL-415 and Air Tractor AT-802/Fire Boss, the A400M firefighting kit could well prove an attractive and successful option for nations already operating the aircraft.