page_title: Europrop TP400
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Europrop TP400 / Development
caption_attribution_description: ILA 2018 - Der Airbus A400M Atlas ist ein militärisches Transportflugzeug von Airbus Defence and Space. Die A400M soll in den Luftwaffen von sieben europäischen NATO-Staaten den größtenteils veralteten Bestand an taktischen Transportflugzeugen der Typen Transall C-160 und Lockheed C-130 Hercules ersetzen.
context_page_description: The Europrop International TP400-D6 is an 11,000 shp powerplant, developed and produced by Europrop International for the Airbus A400M Atlas military transport aircraft. The TP400 is the most powerful single-rotation turboprop in service; only the contra-rotating Kuznetsov NK-12 is larger.
context_section_description: The TP400 was originally selected by Airbus Military to power the A400M in December 2000. However, Airbus reopened the engine competition in February 2002, because the engine core, which is based on the Snecma M88 turbofan fighter engine, was too heavy and not sufficiently fuel efficient. By May 2002, Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) announced a proposal involving a 12,000 shp (8,900 kW) turboprop with a core based on its PW800 turbofan, a 53–89-kilonewton (5,400–9,100-kilogram-force; 12,000–20,000-pound-force) regional jet engine under development that had a geared fan at the time; the concept would later be called the PW180. In 2003, around the 30 April decision deadline, Airbus Chief Executive Noel Forgeard told reporters that the P&WC proposal was 20 percent cheaper than for the TP400, and that he would have chosen to give the contract to P&WC, but government officials requested an extension for the companies to revise their bids. Before the final bids were modified, sources claimed that P&WC's offering, which had a European production percentage of 75 percent, was lower by USD$400 million. On 6 May, amidst pressure from European political and business leaders, Airbus awarded a USD$3.4 billion contract to Europrop to produce 900 engines for the A400M, despite accusations of European protectionism. A member of Europrop claimed after the decision that the TP400 contract would only increase the costs of the USD$22.7 billion A400M program by about 1–2 percent compared to if the PW180 had been selected.
  The signing of the A400M contract between Airbus Military and the European defense purchasing agency OCCAR on May 27, 2003 marked the beginning of the aircraft development program, which was planned to last 77 months (6 years, 5 months). At the 2003 Paris Air Show, Europrop signed a 300 million euro contract with former engine consortium partner Avio to supply the gearboxes. However, because of torque and aerodynamic problems that Lockheed Martin encountered on its C-130J Super Hercules upgrade, which used new engines and propellers that had half the planned output of the TP400, Airbus retained the option to select the engine configuration and the propeller for itself. The TP400 development schedule, which was considered very ambitious, had the bench run of the engine targeted for within 27 months (2 years, 3 months) of the contract signing, or August 2005. In spite of Europrop's insistence that testing on a specialized engine testbed aircraft was unnecessary, Airbus pushed for such a program on the Airbus A300 or A340 starting 11 months of the first ground tests. The engine testbed program would cost Airbus an estimated €40 million.
  In July/August 2003, Airbus signed a contract worth up to USD$830 million with Ratier-Figeac to supply the propellers, which would be 5.33 meters (17.5 feet) in diameter and have eight composite blades. By May 2004, Airbus decided that the A400M design would have a "handed" propeller concept, so that the pair of engines on a wing would rotate in opposite directions. The design required two propellers - the standard propeller, and a mirror-image version. The engine for the mirror-image propeller would need additional gearbox components. This counter-rotating propeller design meant the TP400 engine would have to be certificated for two different gearbox/propeller configurations. Airbus awarded Marshall Aerospace a contract in December 2004 to flight test the TP400 engine on a Lockheed C-130K Hercules aircraft, targeting flights in mid-2006 and hoping for a first flight in April of that year. Other testbed airframes considered were the Ilyushin Il-76 and what was thought to be the favorite, Airbus's own A340-300 testbed aircraft, even though the TP400's large propellers would still have enough ground clearance if it were installed on the A340's low-mounted wing.
  According to the engine master program presented in September 2006, the TP400 was to reach its first engine run by the end of August 2005, followed by the first combined engine and propeller run by the end of that year. The TP400 would fly o
caption: Two TP400 engines on the port wing of an Airbus A400M Atlas at the 2018 ILA Berlin Air Show. With the image zoomed in, the LH or RH markers become visible on the propeller blades, indicating that the blades are for the left-handed and right-handed propeller, respectively.
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