The first A400M retires ! Whilst Turkey should receive its first A400M in the coming days, "Grizzly 1", the first test A400M has just been retired. Its last flight, which lasted an hour, took place on 4th., November over Toulouse in the south west of France. On board... Whilst Turkey should receive its first A-400-M in the coming days, "Grizzly 1", the first test A-400-M has just been retired. Its last flight, lasting an hour, took place on 4th., November over Toulouse in the south west of France. On board, were the same five crew members who undertook the first test flight in December 2009; but the comparison stops there… Ed Strongman / Chief Pilot - Airbus Military During its 475 flights, a total of 1,448 hours spent in the air, and thanks to the 17 tons of instrumentation on board, this first test A-400-M was able to carry out the flight or performance envelope tests, which, amongst many other things; tested the limits of the aircraft not only up to stalling, but by pushing the speed to 960 km ( 600 miles ) / h - or 100 km ( 62 miles ) / h above the safety limit set by the manufacturer, together with the collection of the mass of data, and parametres neccesary in the development of pilot-training flight simulators. But today, after four years of trials," Grizzly 1" has outgrown its usefulness.  Ed Strongman / Chief Pilot - Airbus Military : "We have almost completed all the tests of the European Aviation Safety Agency and now we conduct military tests ... So we still need one heavily instrumented device! For example, for landing on unprepared we are currently conducting track testing, we need to measure the loads of the aircraft on the bumpy tracks so we still use it for one of our first prototypes , the MSN2 , but we do not need 3 cameras." "Grizzly 2" is still in use; as for No. 3, it has, like No. 1, also ended its flight programme, but nevertheless will remain operational in case a technical problem occurs on its "big brother". Finally, two other test A-400-M’s will continue their exclusively military programme. As for the fate of the first Grizzly, Airbus Military will make its decision next year...