In mid-November 2014, Flight International was given the opportunity to visit BAE Systems’ facility at Warton in Lancashire, to be briefed by its Eurofighter Typhoon chief test pilot Mark Bowman and project manager Luke Dickson about the successful introduction and first deliveries to the Royal Air Force under the Phase 1 Enhancement (P1E) programme.
Describing the Eurofighter’s Phase 1 to 4 enhancements (P1E-P4E) process in absolute detail can be complex, as they overlay the Tranche 1, 2 and 3 production standards delivered to the four core partner nations: Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. They are then divided into phased sub-parts, and have various additional ‘Block’, ‘Drop’ and other further minor upgrade designations within these. Therefore, only the description of P1E-P4E will be used as a reference in this review.
To undergo flight testing this year, the P2E phase will add the Storm Shadow and Meteor missiles to Eurofighter
BAE Systems
While the focus for our visit was on the P1E activity, we also covered BAE’s ongoing P2E programme – with flight testing to be carried out throughout this year – and its plans with regard to the future P3E and P4E phases. Contract signatures regarding the last two of these are expected to be secured in the first quarters of 2015 and 2016, respectively.
The UK Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) of 2010 laid down various capability milestones, including for its Interim Force 2015 and Future Force 2020 requirements. In essence, the Royal Air Force’s Tranche 2 (T2) Typhoons upgraded via P1E will meet the earlier objective, set for 1 April, and T2/T3 aircraft with P2E and P3E enhancements installed will satisfy the latter.
A subsequent P4E standard will take the Typhoon beyond 2020, and towards its out of service date. The latter is broadly planned for 2030, but with aircraft deliveries still continuing, the type’s useful life could easily be extended significantly beyond that point.
The RAF’s T1 fleet number will decline starting from 2016, as the service’s earliest Typhoons head towards an out of service date during 2019. This step will leave the UK with a planned combined total of 107 T2/T3-standard aircraft from that point onwards. The nation’s Panavia Tornado GR4 force also has had its out of service date set for 2019, so its T2 P1E Eurofighters will now start to become the deployable standard. Approximately 26 aircraft upgraded to the new standard had been delivered to the RAF by late last year.
P1E firmly anchors the start of the Typhoon’s upgrade path for the next 15-20 years for the UK, and also defines its planned overlap with the introduction of the RAF and Royal Navy’s Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and an unmanned Future Combat Aircraft System now being jointly developed with France.
“The platform you have now is the springboard for the future,” says Bowman.
Our evaluation was conducted using BAE's active cockpit rig for the multirole type
BAE System
The UK Ministry of Defence is committed to developing Typhoon through the P3E and P4E programmes. Some of these upgrades are UK only, however, in agreement and co-operation with the other three partner nations, those retain the future option to buy in to those parts of the work that might suit their individual needs.
One of the main aspects of the P1E project is the full integration of Raytheon Systems’ Paveway IV 226kg-class (500lb) precision-guided bomb onto the Typhoon. Providing pilots with selectable guidance modes between laser, global positioning system and an inertial measurement unit, plus new electronics for fuzing options and anti-jam modes for the weapon, this allows the aircraft to engage at least four ground targets simultaneously with up to six bombs. The new standard also completes the full integration of Rafael’s Litening laser-designation pod, plus upgrades to the aircraft’s Multifunctional Information Distribution System (MIDS) and its wing pod-mounted Defensive Aids Sub-System (DASS). For other users also to receive the P1E enhancement, it also provides full functionality with the Diehl BGT Defence IRIS-T short-range air-to-air missile.
Now an active programme, the P2E phase will integrate MBDA’s Meteor beyond visual-range air-to-air missile and the same company’s Storm Shadow cruise missile. The subsequent P3E activity will integrate its Brimstone system, with Spear 3 to follow – which is also slated for use with the UK’s F-35Bs.
If contracted as expected, a P3E-standard Typhoon delivered to the RAF in 2018 could be configured with a weapons mix drawn from two short-range ASRAAM missles, four Meteors, two Storm Shadows, six Brimstones (on a pair of triple-round launchers), four Paveway IVs (on two double-store launchers), two external fuel tanks and a targeting pod. This will represent a very powerful multi-role combination.
“A subsequent retrofit of the Euroradar Captor E active electronically scanned array [AESA] will further strengthen Typhoon’s potency,” says BAE. To replace the mechanically-scanned Captor M radar on T3 aircraft, the AESA sensor is also to be offered as a modernisation option for T2 examples. Operational flight testing is expected to start in 2016.
Further ahead, P4E would look to give the Typhoon further capabilities, such as a full stand-off-range reconnaissance capability in extension to that presently provided by the Tornado-carried UTC Raptor pod.
“I am very positive about where we’re going with the aircraft, and the development plan,” says Dickson.
The UK’s next SDSR will occur this year, along with a general election in May. Tension over events in Ukraine and the ongoing chaos in the Middle East mean that there should be a real focus within the review about the capabilities of its Joint Expeditionary Force Concept. Under that construct, the Typhoon must play an essential and pivotal role in providing any Allied Force Commander with the multi-role attack options needed against any potential threat armed with sophisticated and modern weapons.
A central aspect of the P1E project is full integration of Raytheon Systems' Paveway IV
BAE Systems
My evaluation of P1E standard took place using BAE’s active cockpit rig (ACR) for the Eurofighter, and was overseen by Steve Nuttall, one of the company’s senior Typhoon cockpit engineers.
The ACR is BAE’s simulator tool for Typhoon Mission System cockpit, software and display development. The fixed-base device sits within a semi-hemispherical dome visual system and its indicated performance replicates the real aircraft. Flight Control System development work takes place inside another engineering simulator at Warton.
Because of International Trade in Armament Regulations restrictions, I was only able to evaluate an unclassified version of P1E. However, the simulator evaluation would still grant me the ability to realistically answer two test objectives: how effectively can the Typhoon, with a P1E baseline, fight within a simultaneous air-to-air and an air-to-ground scenario, and how easily can it ‘swing’ between these roles?
Replicated in the simulator, the Typhoon’s cockpit is wide, roomy and uncluttered. The hands on throttle and stick (HOTAS) controls are easy to manipulate, and group 12 switches on the throttle – primarily for weapons and sensor control – and 10 on the stick, mainly for aircraft control and weapons release. The head-up display (HUD) has a field of view of over 40˚, and is the widest HUD I have ever evaluated. Directly below it is the ‘eye-level’ Multifunctional Information Distribution System datalink message display and control panel, and below that, the indications for the aircraft’s two Eurojet EJ200 turbofan engines. The three principal head-down display screens are all 6 x 6” in size and each has sets of large, multi-mode push buttons along the screen base and sides. To the left hand side of the glareshield is the main data entry panel, and below that, the weapons control panel.
In the air-to-air mode, the left-hand side screen is typically used as a B-scope, showing a fused sensor picture, including radar, MIDS and infrared search and track (IRST) information in azimuth. The right-hand screen shows the air picture in elevation, while the central one acts as a tactical (real world) map.
I was highly impressed by the ease and rapidity with which targets could be identified individually after each had been broken out from within a group of even eight or more targets, and then assessed in terms of range and altitude and sorted in terms of hostile/unknown/friendly classification, placed in descending threat priority and then engaged in sequence. A stick-mounted mode button allows for instant toggling between radar-homing medium- and infrared-homing short-range air-to-air missiles and gun.
The HUD symbology (fast jet format) was very well mechanised, easy to scan and also easy to interpret, with the aircraft’s own flight and energy indications grouped primarily to the left and information on targets primarily grouped to the right. The display shows symbology of when the target is within missile capability range (aided by a ‘growl’ for infrared missile lock) and accompanied by HUD indications of ‘SHOOT’.
The Eurofighter’s IRST system is also seamlessly coupled to the radar to increase detection capability, and displayed against the target symbols for situational awareness as to which sensor (or both) had detection. I found the direct voice input function to be another superb piece of man machine interface. It takes some initial getting used to in terms of spoken format, but once mastered it is a very real combat aid for a pilot.
My only regret in the air-to-air mode was that the aircraft does not have an integral nose-mounted electro-optical sensor to complement the IRST for stealthy long-range visual target identification. BAE notes, however, that the system can be used in this context when a laser designation pod is fitted.
Engaging up to eight target aircraft was as simple as pulling the air-to-air trigger as many times. The Typhoon made the complex geometry of high/low/widely split air-to-air missile combat and the engagement of multiple, simultaneous targets, seem a very simple task indeed.
During the air-to-air scenarios, a further of the Eurofighter’s advantages was constantly evident; the aircraft has simply staggering levels of performance in terms of excess energy. For example, at around 5,000ft, at mid fuel weight, external combat fuel tanks and eight missiles, in full reheat at 530kt (980km/h) indicated air speed, with full back stick sustaining 9g in a level turn, the aircraft was still accelerating at approximately 2-3kt/sec.
In the air-to-ground mode, the left-hand screen is retained as an air-to-air picture, the middle screen as a tactical ground situational display with planned route and planned target map and the right-hand screen as the targeting and laser designation pod image, or swapped to/from the DASS display if required. The principal weapon type was the Paveway IV, with a typical ballistic launch envelope of the aircraft at around 20,000ft and 500kt. The Litening pod was also easy to manipulate to change the designation of the precise impact point at the target, and the display had superb image resolution. The pod was normally coupled to the radar, but could be decoupled to operate independently.
The HUD showed a rectangular ‘kill box’ when the selected weapon had the required probability of kill and a visual indication of ‘PICKLE’. I found the presentation of weapon combinations on the multiple mode keys – for target number, sequence, guidance modes, bombs per target etc – and the selection changes that needed to be made in case the target priorities changed prior to a planned attack on the left hand glareshield was not immediately intuitive, as I had never sat in a Typhoon cockpit before. However, once programmed it was then shown to be simple to engage up to four ground targets with up to six bombs using various guidance methods and effect options for each individual weapon.
Whenever required, given the air situation, with one push of a stick-mounted HOTAS key, the Typhoon was instantly reconfigured back into the air-to-air mode, and ready to engage airborne threats. This shows that the aircraft processes extreme lethality in either role.
The final part of the evaluation involved wearing the Striker 1 helmet-mounted display (HMD) system, which is planned to be superseded by the enhanced Striker 2. The combat advantages and increase in situational awareness that this level of advanced HMD bring to a pilot are truly revolutionary – so much so that it is hard to express the combat potential that it represents for the future of combat aircraft.
By wearing an HMD, a pilot is completely freed from using the cockpit displays, both head up and head down, and puts air and ground targets into their real spatial orientation, along with all the information linked to them. The technology also brings the ability to cue air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons off-boresight, simply by looking at a target. At the same time, it also allows an operator to retain full flight awareness.
Add to this mix future developments to the HMD such as colour symbology, 3D helmet audio, eye scan technology and improvements in direct voice input, then this display technology will be one of the key elements in not only the Typhoon’s own future combat effectiveness, but also when it is being flown within and controlling future mixed fleets of manned and unmanned combat aircraft.
My short simulator sessions easily answered my two set objectives. Anchored by P1E, the Eurofighter’s pending AESA radar, the Striker 2 HMD and the aircraft’s massive inherent energy performance, the Typhoon is now focused properly on its planned upgrade path to marry unmatched lethality in both the air-to-ground and air-to-air roles. Additionally, the Tranche 2 and 3 models can now ‘swing’ between either combat role and back again with the push of one HOTAS button, and be ready to fight instantly in that advanced configuration.
The P1E package properly baselines the Typhoon to fully realise its undoubted combat potential. The RAF is now fielding a true multi-role aircraft that can face any threat out to 2030 or beyond.
Source: Flight International
