On Friday, the Airbus A400M, the military transport plane, will undertake its maiden flight, the success of which is critical to a project that has been under constant threats and has endured almost 2 years of delays and cost revisions. As confirmed by a spokesperson for Airbus's parent company EADS, the first ever flight will be taken from Seville, Southern Spain.

Currently, as many as 7 buyers from across Europe are in talks with EADS, discussing the future of the 20 Billion Euros ($29.6 Billion) worth of defense program. Defense analysts have been quick to stress that success of the first flight will give the project a much required boost.

Airbus had earlier shared that it is aiming to fly the plane by year-end, which is also the deadline for a political agreement on the future of the multi-billion Euros project.

As has been confirmed by the company, the A400M has been designed to carry up-to 37 tons of troops and heavy military equipment like helicopters and armored vehicles to various war zone, like Afghanistan, or to support humanitarian missions.

Manufacturers of the military plane have now shared that if everything goes as planned and the projects gets a green signal, deliveries for the A400M will start within 3 years of the maiden flight, which is a delay from the earlier shared delivery time of 2009.