Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH
Eurofighter is investigating the possibility of fitting conformal fuel tanks to the EF2000 fighter, in addition to several cockpit upgrades.
Detailed studies are being carried out on conformal tanks to meet a possible future requirement for extended range, according to Eurofighter managing director Brian Phillipson. "We have got a design concept and we have completed some tests on it, and there is a distinct possibility of such a requirement emerging," he said.
The additional fuel weight penalty will be offset by the potential of the Eurojet EJ200 engine for a 15% thrust increase.
Any requirement for extra is likely to come from future export customers which are more interested in a long-range interdictor, and an anticipated future RAF requirement for such a variant.
The tanks are being studied alongside other future EF2000 configurations, including a thrust vectoring variant and the carrier-capable version being considered for the UK Royal Navy.
Cockpit improvements would include changes to the microprocessors "in some areas", including choosing a four-processor configuration in the display symbol generator instead of the original single-processor configuration. This arrangement will be included in all production aircraft.
Phillipson says that a multi-processor solution has also been chosen to control the aircraft's weapons systems. The company is sticking with its original choice of Motorola 6800 series processors, however. The changes were driven partly by the need to meet requirements for aircraft systems to be resistant to electromagnetic pulse effects in a nuclear environment.
One further cockpit modification which could be introduced in the first batch of production aircraft is the replacement of cathode ray tube (CRT) displays with liquid crystal displays, primarily because of the obsolescence of CRTs.
Source: Flight International