Douglas Barrie/LONDON
GEC HAS FLOWN high-ranking Government officials from the four Eurofighter partner nations in the UK Defence Research Agency's BAC-One Eleven test-bed for the ECR 90 radar, in a move aimed at demonstrating that the radar meets key performance requirements.
The officials included Christian Biener, systems manger for the EF2000 in the German Government's weapons-procurement division, and his counterparts from Italy, Spain and the UK.
The flight, which took place in September, was aimed at impressing upon the partner nations that "maturity requirements" for the ECR 90 multi-mode pulse-Doppler radar, developed by a GEC-Marconi-led consortium, are now being met.
Meeting these criteria on the radar is vital if production investment on the EF2000 is to proceed. Problems with radar/radome integration had been causing concern among the partner nations.
Political sources close to the Eurofighter programme say that, during the 150min flight, the radar was successfully demonstrated in several air-to-air modes against Royal Air Force Panavia Tornado targets, as well as GEC's own calibrated target.
The radar being flown was effectively a pre-production standard ECR 90, although it was not believed to have had the "fix" intended to fully resolve the radar/led radome issues.
Daimler-Benz Aerospace held senior design responsibility for the radar until earlier this year and has designed a radar antenna modification to overcome what it describes as "flashback". This resulted from radar energy being reflected by the inside wall of the radome.
Source: Flight International