EADS Mako: Dead or Alive? (1st topic of the "Dead or Alive?" series, with drawing!)

The EADS Mako has been floating around for the last decade.

It was originally marketed as the AT-2000 and an effort was made to sell the project to South Africa in partnership with South Korean. This was obviously a backdoor approach against KTX-2 which, inevitably, failed.

The UAE has long been touted as a launch customer, but no formal requirement has ever appeared. Lately, there have been rumblings about the sale of 60 T-50 Golden Eagle trainers to the UAE. It stands to reason that an airplane that’s actually in production has a better chance than one which is still at the definition phase. Maybe, it’s still too soon to discount the UAE……

The last real “progress” was the selection of the GM F414 as the “baseline engine” back in 2002. At very least, that selection probably put another nail in the coffin of the Snecma M88-3. The decision also insured that American permission would have to be sought for any potential Mako sale. In the end, the decision seemed very peculiar because no current EADS partner nation currently used the F414 and the Mako had previously been depicted with the EJ200.

It now appears that the 12 nation Eurotraining requirement is the Mako’s last and best hope for ever being launched. Mention has been made of separate “subsonic” and “supersonic” Mako proposals.

So, the big question is whether the EADS Mako is alive or dead?