STEWART PENNEY / GETAFE, SPAIN

UK RAF likely to take first aircraft in September

The delivery schedule for the first Eurofighters is expected to be finalised at the NATO armament directors meeting at Berlin early next month.

Eurofighter declines to comment on its plans before the meeting, but industry sources say the Eurofighter consortium - consisting of Alenia Aeronautica, BAE Systems, EADS Casa and EADS Germany - is predicting a three- to five-month delay in the first handover following hold-ups in completing the first three instrumented production aircraft (IPA). The NATO management agency, NETMA, which represents the German, Italian, Spanish and UK governments, is working on a four- to six-month delay.

Service entry with the UK Royal Air Force is now expected in September - a three-month slippage from the schedule outlined at contract signature in 1998.

The first aircraft to be delivered, BT001, is being assembled by BAE at its Warton, north-west England site, and is scheduled for a late August first flight with delivery four weeks later. All four nations will receive at least one aircraft by the end of this year, says Eurofighter.

As well as production issues, industry sources say schedules have also been threatened by the German, Italian and Spanish air forces wishing to modify the production plan to take all two-seaters in the initial deliveries, while the UK wants some single seaters, principally for use by its Eurofighter Operational Evaluation Unit. If a decision is not reached next month, it could slip to the next meeting, at Farnborough in July.

Programme sources say there will probably be a switch to earlier production of two-seaters, which will mean that, although the number of aircraft delivered will be back on track by the end of the first quarter next year, the mix of single and two-seat Eurofighters delivered will not match the 1998 programme until 2004.

Eurofighter managing director Bob Haslam says the three IPAs have been flying steadily since their first flights. The Italian-built IPA2 flew three times on the day of its first flight, 5 April, while IPA3 in Germany mirrored this on 8 April. IPA1 made its first flights last week.

Haslam says the sortie rate is far more intensive than the 10h a month planned in 1998.

Source: Flight International