The sixth Eurofighter EF2000 prototype, development aircraft DA5, was flown for the first time on 24 February, against a background of renewed fear that Germany could miss its first-quarter deadline for production-investment approval.
Political sources say that the fears have been revived after the EF2000 failed to appear on the agenda at the last two German cabinet meetings on 4 and 18 February. It is believed that defence minister Volker Rühe is reluctant to push such an expensive and controversial programme, while Germany is cutting social benefits as it struggles to meet the Maastricht criteria for European monetary union.
If the end-of-March deadline is not met, this would once again raise the spectre of increases in system price. "Things would start to unravel," says one Bonn source. German Eurofighter partner Daimler-Benz Aerospace (Dasa) insists that it is "-still confident that the Government will keep its promise" of a March go-ahead.
The DA5 is the first of the six test aircraft flown to date to incorporate the European ECR90 radar, developed jointly for the EF2000 by GEC-Marconi Avionics, DASA's Sensor Systems division, Fiar and Enosa. The aircraft had a 1h flight from Dasa's Manching centre, flown by chief test pilot Wolfgang Schirdewahn.
Dasa says that the ECR90 radar was operational during the flight, with initial target acquisition and tracking tests carried out on two military aircraft.
Source: Flight International