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The seven customer nations then agreed to increase the price of the project by euro2 billion ($2.8 billion) and also said they would provide an additional euro1.5 billion ($2.1 billion) in exchange for a share of future export sales. European nations have long been hampered by the shortfall in strategic military airlift capabilities. In the 1990s, they struggled to deploy forces to nearby troublespots in Bosnia and Kosovo without using U.S. Air Force transports such as the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III. Airbus says the A400M, which uses the largest turboprop engines ever fitted to a Western aircraft, will be able to carry twice the load of another competitor, the Lockheed Hercules, and that its fuel-efficient power plants will make it cheaper to operate than the jet-powered Boeing C-17. The A400M's four turboprops, mounted high on the wing, also will allow it to fly in and out of unprepared airstrips where jet-powered transports with engines slung low beneath the wings face the danger of ingesting runway debris, Airbus says.
[Associated
Press;
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