Russia is not near to being the the second most dangerous place to fly in the world, the Russian aviation authorities have certainly improved their act in the last few years. I would fly in Russia, and have done so in the past.

Second most dangerous country to fly in? Try Indonesia…

Question if they take hull loss rate (which takes hull losses per take-off, but doesn’t factor in the passengers on board), or the number of death bodies per travelled distance. While the layman would consider the latter more meaningful, for flight safety the first is of higher importance, as the flight safety is best expressed as how many aircraft (irregardless of their size) are lost per 1 million take-off & land cycles (again considering the low impact flight time has on accident probability).

The comparison of Russia versus Africa is a bit odd as IMC is more likely in Russia.

Appreciate your comment.
Thanks.

Disagreement with previous post!

The A400M is a very good aircraft, but will have an aweful lot of technical issues in the beginning. However, that is true for nearly all military (and recently all civil) projects.
Antonov crashed two prototypes and still doesn’t have a production-ready aircraft, after over ten years of development.

What are the chances of us seeing a Berkut,Mig1.44 style tech demonstrator from the Chinese (just for the hype) soon ?

0.0257

Failed by a big margin to boot;- it only made 70 % ultimate (i.e. 105% limit)

I think that margin of failure is without precedent in the last 40-50 years

The Lockheed Galaxy failed at 120% LL. The B787 wing did not fail, but there was delamination of some structural parts. I wouldn’t call that a real failure, but it was close to it.
The fact that a structural part fails does not mean the whole aircraft is a mess or unsafe, it rather points out that the processes and tools used to design the aircraft are not well established. Many structural parts needs redesign, in any aircraft program, but the general public normally doesn’t learn about it.

Half a chance the A-400M will end up replacing C130J’s in a few countries once they get the bugs worked out. Because even the C130J doesnt have the capacity to carry a lot of the newer armoured vehicles, while the A400M, even though overweight, does have that capacity.

And what limits the MTOW of the aircraft?
Maybe the better step is to soften the requirements, the A400M is sized in many respects by soft field landings and other military stuff. When it flies from 8000ft runway to another 8000ft runway such limitations are not in place.

Does anyone have an idea as to what Dreamlifter development cost was?

I would put in the mid 3digit million region. Design was largely done by engineers in Russia. There are only two aircraft and I doubt they have full certification.

wonder if engineers of today are less competent? in the 60:s they landed on the moon with help of an small calculator?!

The A400M specs were not made by the engineers.
The A400M time schedule is surely not from engineering.

Engineering has less control over programs than it had in earlier years. Aviation is becoming more and more business-oriented, but for high-tech that apparently is a flawed approach.