STEWART PENNEY / LONDON
Future plans for the four-nation combat aircraft could include a flying demonstrator
BAE Systems is promoting a Eurofighter technology demonstrator programme (TDP)to its industrial partners that will be used for prototyping new capabilities for the four-nation fighter.
With the first production Eurofighter due to fly this year and the first aircraft to be handed over next June, the four Eurofighter partner companies (EPCs)- Alenia, BAESystems and EADS in Germany and Spain - have created a team, dispersed between the EPCs, to consider the future development of the aircraft, particularly its air-to-ground capability. Over the next year the team will evaluate what the partner air forces require and the optimum way to insert technology, says BAE programme director for Eurofighter/Typhoon Ross Bradley.
"Maybe we could turn one aircraft into a demonstrator," he says. The aircraft could be a production example or one of the development aircraft, four of which are being upgraded to production standard.
Bradley believes a decision to go ahead with a TDP will be made in the next 12-18 months. Putting new technologies into a demonstrator and then "reverse engineering" a production system would be a "faster route" than traditional development programmes, he says. Normally, a prototype installation is developed and then flight tested, before a production standard system is designed.
Part of the new team's role is to define the Tranche 2 and Tranche 3 aircraft standards that will enter service later this decade. These will be more capable than the initial operational capability aircraft due to enter service next year, which is dedicated for the air-to-air role, and the multirole full operational capability fighter due to enter service in 2005.
Bradley says potential developments include improved range and survivability, the former through conformal fuel tanks and the latter via developments of the defensive aids sub-System. Radar changes will include an electronically scanned array antenna and a terrain following mode while modular avionics will also be introduced.
Life cycle costs will be reduced, by using commercial components and processors, and replacing the multiple hardware cards in today's systems with single cards.
Source: Flight International
