Airbus recently celebrated the milestone of 300 orders for its Airbus C295 medium tactical transport aircraft. From the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean to the arid deserts of Arabia, from the tropical jungles to the Sahara and the steppes of Kazakhstan, Airbus highlights that the C295 and its market share have become a success story for the aerospace industry.
Airbus highlights 45 interesting facts and figures about the aircraft below, from the first unit to the three hundredth.
1. The Airbus C295 has reached 300 orders following the acquisition of a third aircraft by the Republic of Kazakhstan, in transport configuration, for the National Security Committee Aviation Service. This new aircraft joins the two C295s already operated by this agency.
2. In 1999, the Spanish Air and Space Force became the first C295 customer by purchasing nine aircraft, in transport configuration, with the first aircraft delivered in 2000.
3. The C295 is the market leader in the medium tactical transport category, with over 80% of the market. Currently, there are 41 operators from 37 countries in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. Of these 41 operators, 19 placed new orders.
4. India is the largest customer for the C295, with 56 units, 16 assembled in Seville and the rest to be assembled by Tata in Vadodara, India. In September 2023, the Indian Air Force (IAF) received the first aircraft. Delivery of the second aircraft is scheduled for May 2024 and the next 14 will be delivered at a rate of one per month until August 2025.
5. To date, the C295 has accumulated 610,000 flight hours between all its operators. The operator with the highest number of flight hours is the Spanish Air and Space Force, with more than 90,000 flight hours. The Brazilian Air Force has the C295 with the highest number of flight hours, accumulating more than 9,000 flight hours.
Global citizen
6. After the success of the C212 and CN235, Construcciones Aeronáuticas (CASA), the origin of Airbus in Spain, decided to launch the C295, the natural evolution of the CN235, a slightly larger aircraft with 50% more capacity.
7. Compared to its predecessor, the C295 is characterized by a more powerful engine, the 2645 hp Pratt & Whitney Canada PW100, a new propeller, a redesigned wing, among other changes, but maintaining as much community as possible between the two platforms .
8. The name C295 means “C” for CASA, “2” for the number of engines and “95” for the initially planned maximum payload: 9.5 tons.
9. The program was officially launched in 1996, construction of the first prototype began in early 1997 and the first flight took place in November of the same year in Getafe, Madrid. In November 1999, the Spanish National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA) militarily certified the aircraft for the first time.
10. The development of the aircraft is carried out by Airbus engineers, mainly Spanish, but it is still a success story of Airbus’ European efforts.
11. The 35th Wing of the Spanish Air and Space Force operates its fleet of C295s in transport configuration from Getafe Air Base. For example, these C295s are part of the Ivory Detachment in Senegal to support Mali in the fight against jihadism.
12. The Spanish National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA) has operated a C295 since 2023 for scientific research, such as collecting geospatial data (agriculture, geology, atmosphere, inland waters).
13. In December 2023, the Spanish Ministry of Defense also acquired 16 C295s in patrol and maritime surveillance configurations. These aircraft, which will be designed and manufactured entirely in Spain, reinforce the defense industrial footprint and national sovereignty.
14. The C295 MPA acquired by Spain is the most advanced mission configuration and the C295 with the greatest capabilities. A major development project that will bring together the latest technologies to provide a major operational advantage to our client.
Production, maintenance and training
15. The work of design and engineering of the C295 is carried out at the Airbus facility in Getafe.
16. The Tablada factory in Seville carries out the pre-assembly of major components for the C295, such as the fuselage, which is then assembled on the final assembly line (FAL).
17. The C295 FAL is located at Airbus’ San Pablo Sur facility in Seville.
18. Assembling an aircraft is a complex process that depends on many manufacturing variables, but as an approximation, it could be said that a C295 in transport configuration is delivered in a period of between one and two years. Delivery times for a standard mission version would be 2 years. This time may increase depending on the selected configuration.
19. Between 200 and 250 people are directly involved in the C295 manufacturing process.
20. The final assembly process is divided into four parts: integration, testing, painting and flying.
21. Production of the C295 is characterized by digitalization, with tablets or mixed reality glasses being used to assemble parts instead of paper.
22. Another assembly line is currently under construction in Vadodara, India, to produce 40 of the Indian Air Force’s 56 C295s. Delivery of the first “Made in India” C295 is scheduled for 2026.
23. The San Pablo Norte facility performs maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) on C295s already in service with several customers.
24. Pilots, maintenance technicians and loadmasters of different C295 customers are trained at the International Training Center (ITC) in San Pablo, with courses lasting between 2 and 60 days. The ITC has two C295 flight simulators, one with Thales avionics and the other with Collins avionics.
25. Since the delivery of the first C295 aircraft, approximately 700 pilots and 1,700 maintenance technicians have been trained and qualified at ITC.
26. Airbus provides airbase support to C295 operators through its service personnel to ensure the highest possible fleet availability. Airbus Field Service Representatives (FSR) are currently deployed to C295 bases in Burkina Faso, Brunei, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, India, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Portugal, Senegal, Serbia and the United Arab Emirates.
Versions
27. The C295 is characterized by its versatility, both in terms of missions and configurations. The best-selling version of the C295 is the transport version, capable of carrying 70 military personnel or 48 paratroopers, VIP personnel, container loads, vehicles or pallets. Serbia, Poland and Mexico are among the operators of the transport version.
28. The C295 can be converted into an air ambulance with up to 24 stretchers and 7 medical assistants or even intensive care. During the COVID-19 crisis, in humanitarian disasters such as Cyclone Idai in Mozambique, or in armed conflicts such as Afghanistan or Mali, the C295 was used in a medical evacuation configuration (MEDEVAC).
29. The maritime patrol version (C295 MPA) performs surveillance, anti-submarine and anti-surface missions, thanks to the use of active and passive sensors, a magnetic anomaly detector and a high-performance radar.
30. Maritime and land surveillance and search and rescue are the main missions of the MSA (Maritime Surveillance Aircraft) variant, acquired by Portugal, Chile, Oman, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Canada, Ireland, Angola and Spain .
31. The C295 can also be configured to support Special Operations, with incremental configurations ranging from a transport aircraft to an internally armed and/or underwing mission aircraft to perform close air support (CAS) operations.
32. The C295 missions are equipped with the FITS (Fully Integrated Tactical System) mission system, developed by Airbus Defense and Space, which allows the C295 to perform functions ranging from anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare (ASW) to search and rescue ( SAR), maritime patrol (MPA), signals intelligence (SIGINT) and environmental protection, among others. FITS can be operated remotely from the ground.
33. The C295 can also be used as a tanker aircraft for aerial refueling of other aircraft or helicopters, in day and night operations. This requires the installation of a roll-on/roll-off kit.
Missions
34. Versatility, reliability and low cost are the hallmarks of the C295 and have made it a global success. In the most demanding deployments, it has achieved fleet availability rates of over 95%. This is the case of the two Spanish Air and Space Force C295s, which operated an average of 160 hours per month for 11 months in Chad in support of the EUFOR mission to improve security in the region.
35. Senegal is using the C295 in the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). For example, in just 14 days in 2024, they flew 28 flights averaging 16 hours per day (221 hours in total). During these flights, they covered 43,400 nautical miles (about 80,000 km) and carried 1,000 passengers and 56 tons of cargo (on average 2 tons of cargo and 35 passengers per flight).
36. The C295 is capable of taking off and landing on short, soft-surfaced, unpaved runways (STOL), making it the ideal aircraft for theaters of operations around the world, from desert and arid to tropical and cold climates.
37. An example of STOL capability is the use of roads by Polish or Finnish C295s as runways to prepare for an attack.
38. In June 2023, a Colombian Air Force C295 transported the four children who spent forty days lost in the Colombian jungle to a hospital in Bogotá. Once it was known that the children had been found, a C295 was modified in just an hour and a half to become an air ambulance. The pilot landed with night vision goggles on an unprepared runway without a tower, where the children were rescued and taken to Bogotá.
39. The C295 cruises at altitudes of up to 30,000 feet, but also excels at low altitudes and low speeds, ideal for maritime patrol missions.
40. The missions of the two Irish Air Corps C295s include monitoring illegal fishing in their fishing grounds and pollution from ships near their coasts.
41. Portugal frequently uses its C295s to transport patients in need of medical care between the islands of the Azores or Madeira archipelago or to the mainland.
42. During the COVID-19 crisis, the 35th Wing of the Spanish Air and Space Force transported masks and food rations in a C295 to the island of Tenerife, off the coast of Africa, while Brazilian authorities loaded the aircraft with respirators in São Paulo, bound for Fortaleza, in the northeast of the country. Other C295 operators used it to transport citizens infected with the virus.
43. The Chilean Navy used its C295s to support firefighting in the Biobío region, in the south of the country, while Colombia used the aircraft to create water lines to fight fires in Vichada, on the border with Venezuela.
44. The C295 is also used to send humanitarian material, as in the case of the Philippine Air Force, which sent 1,500 aid boxes to the Visayas and Mindanao after the floods that affected these regions of the country.
45. The C295 can also fly on up to 50% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), a mixture of waste oils, vegetables and fats, free of aromatics and sulfur, without modifications to the aircraft, as part of the military aviation decarbonization objective .
Airbus Information
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