EADS confirms tanker refuelling test

PARIS, March 4 (Reuters) - EADS, the European aerospace group that has won a controversial contract to supply aerial tankers to the United States, confirmed on Tuesday it had carried out the first test of the plane's refuelling boom.

EADS (EAD.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) Chief Executive Louis Gallois disclosed the test in an interview with Reuters on Friday, shortly after EADS won the $35 billion tanker contract with its senior partner Northrop Grumman (NOC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) of the United States.

EADS had lost an earlier bid to modernise the Pentagon's ageing aerial tanker fleet earlier this decade when it lacked both a U.S. partner and its own special refuelling boom.

The boom is a 17-metre Fly-By-Wire or electronically controlled arm that allows the transfer of fuel from airborne fuel tankers, converted from the airframes used for passenger planes, to fighter jets and other combat aircraft in mid-air.

EADS said in a statement the Air Refuelling Boom System, developed at a cost of $100 million, had been tested on an F-16 aircraft. Gallois said the test had been carried out on Friday using an F-16 from the Portuguese Air Force.

Northrop and EADS defeated Boeing to win the tanker bid, sparking fury in Congress over potential job losses to Europe.

EADS will supply "green" Airbus A330 airframes, meaning they are flyable but lack any passenger frills. The aircraft will then be fitted with the EADS boom and Northrop military gear.

Airbus is a subsidiary of EADS.

Sections of the jets will be made in Airbus factories in France, Germany, Britain and Spain. They will be transported to a new site in Mobile, Alabama, for final assembly and military conversion.

While U.S. unions have protested over the use of European parts, a group of French unions issued its own protest over the loss of assembly jobs to the U.S. and called a day of protest at an Airbus plant at Saint-Nazaire in western France on April 9. (Reporting by Tim Hepher, editing by Will Waterman)