BAE Systems will continue to service and support the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft’s avionics for the platform’s founding nations’ air forces in Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Italy, for the next five years. The agreements, worth £80 million, secure ongoing service and repairs for key avionics equipment such as displays, flight controls, and Helmet Mounted Displays, ensuring that the Typhoon is ready for deployment at all times. Avionics service and support is a core focus for BAE Systems’ facility in Rochester, UK. The integrated team based at RAF Coningsby is embedded into the Typhoon Total Availability Enterprise contract, and they work closely to troubleshoot and undertake repairs. Their guaranteed turnaround times allow the customer to accurately plan aircraft operations.
“BAE Systems’ avionics service and support team helps our customers ensure that Typhoon is ready to secure our skies and support the UK’s international allies 24/7, 365 days a year,” said Jim Whittington, senior project manager at BAE Systems’ Rochester, UK facility. “The flexibility within these services will help increase our customers’ flying capability, whereby we are able to meet any additional service demands.”
The Eurofighter Typhoon is a European multinational twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter. The Typhoon was designed originally as an air superiority fighter and is manufactured by a consortium of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo that conducts the majority of the project through a joint holding company, Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH. The NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency, representing the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain, manages the project and is the prime customer. Eurofighter is Europe’s largest defence programme. In addition to technological capabilities, the programme secures more than 100,000 jobs in Europe. At present, 681 Eurofighter aircraft have been sold to nine nations.
The Eurofighter Typhoon is a highly agile aircraft, designed to be an effective dogfighter in combat. Later production aircraft have been increasingly better equipped to undertake air-to-surface strike missions and to be compatible with an increasing number of different armaments and equipment. Navigation is via both GPS and an inertial navigation system. The Typhoon can use Instrument Landing System (ILS) for landing in poor weather. The aircraft also features an enhanced ground proximity warning system (GPWS) based on the TERPROM Terrain Referenced Navigation (TRN) system used by the Panavia Tornado. MIDS provides a Link 16 data link. The aircraft employs a sophisticated and highly integrated Defensive Aids Sub-System named Praetorian, Praetorian monitors and responds automatically to air and surface threats, provides an all-round prioritised assessment, and can respond to multiple threats simultaneously.
