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The world's biggest defence deal is in danger of becom-ing one of the slowest in his-tory. More than two years after India zeroed in on the French Rafale fighter jet-after a tor-tured 11-year selection process-to replace its ageing MiG-21s, the Ger-man-led European consortium which was the runner-up in the race has sought to restart the dogfight by offer-ing a new, cheaper proposal for its Eurofighter Typhoon. The Narendra Modi Government, INDIA TODAY has learnt, is studying the German proposal even as Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) has been nego-tiating with France's Dassault, the maker of the Rafale, to finalise agree-ments to...

Multi-role functionality has been a long time coming for the Eurofighter Typhoon. But the four-nation industrial consortium building the combat jet says the Phase 1 Enhancements (P1E) package that is now entering service represents a “paradigm shift” in capability. The commander of the UK Royal Air Force (RAF) Typhoon force, Air Cmdr. Gary Waterfall, said the new package allows the RAF to drop 500-pound Paveway IV “smart” bombs “at the moment of our choosing, on targets of our choosing, with a multitude of fuse settings, impact angles and arrivals.” Laurie Hilditch, Eurofighter GmbH future capabilities manager, added, “The operator may...

Eurofighter will by year-end make is final proof-of-concept test flight on an aerodynamic modification kit that promises to improve the combat aircraft’s subsonic turn rate by 15%. Adding leading edge root extensions and extended trailing edge flaps, and reshaping the side-of-cockpit ILS antennae covers as 70° delta strakes should improve the aircraft’s agility for close-quarters combat. Laurie Hilditch, head of future capabilities at Eurofighter, says the modification kit should give the aircraft the sort of “knife-fight in a phone box” turning capability enjoyed by rivals such as Boeing’s F/A-18E/F or the Lockheed Martin F-16, without sacrificing the transonic and supersonic...

The Eurofighter Typhoon’s proposed conformal fuel tank (CFT) configuration has entered windtunnel testing in the UK, partner company BAE Systems has revealed. BAE says it is “currently assessing the aerodynamic characteristics of carrying two fuselage-mounted conformal fuel tanks on the Typhoon aircraft”, using a high-speed windtunnel at its Warton site in Lancashire. “This testing will help to accelerate the clearance process for such tanks to be integrated on to Typhoon, offering increased range and flexibility to the aircraft,” the company adds. BAE Systems A new configuration item for the Tranche 3 production standard Typhoon, the conformal structures would free up...

Even if the last F-104 fighter jets in active service were retired by the Italian Air Force on Oct. 31, 2004, the Starfighter legacy survived in a modern combat plane: the Eurofighter Typhoon. Whereas the various G, S, ASA and ASA-M variants never featured it, there was an F-104 example fitted with fly-by-wire controls which flew about thirty years before the Italian Zippers were grounded forever. During the 1970s, Germany understood that future fighters would need to achieve high agility as well as the ability to fly at high angles of attack. These capabilities required an unstable aircraft configuration. In...

Europe's Largest Defense Program Looks to Middle East and Asia for Sales The decision by Germany to cancel a multibillion-euro order for Eurofighter Typhoon jets on Wednesday leaves Europe's largest defense program even more reliant on a shrinking band of potential buyers in the Middle East and Asia. Germany had initially pledged to buy up to 250 of the advanced fighters but, like others in the four-nation consortium that funded the jet, has opted to cut orders because of domestic budget pressures. The makers of the Eurofighter, including BAE Systems BA.LN -0.18% PLC, Airbus Group EADSY -0.88% NV DICO.AE -0.42%...

Years of uncertainty ends over multi-billion pound sale of fighters to Saudi Arabia in boost to defence giant ahead of annual results BAE has finally agreed a deal over price increases for the sale of 72 Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Saudi Arabia. The FTSE 100 defence company signed a £4.5bn contract to provide the supersonic fighters to the Middle East nation seven years ago but the sale has faced hurdles over cost, forcing BAE to defer earnings from the so-called "Salam" deal. BAE said on Wednesday that it had agreed "price escalation terms" to the original agreement which had included...

Upgrading military aircraft – fixed wing and rotary – is a common operation performed all over the world. You take an old platform, reinforce the fuselage and wings, install some new systems and it can fly for many more years. But what Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is currently doing with its old Kfir fighter aircraft is an exception. The Kfir (Lion Cub) fighter is a single-seat multitask fighter built by IAI. The aircraft was first built for the Israeli air force (IAF). The first Kfir was delivered to the IAF in 1975, and entered into service in 1976. The fighter...

Paris — The European Eurofighter consortium has signed a draft agreement to sell 28 of its fighter planes to Kuwait, online French newspaper La Tribune reported on Thursday. Of the 28 outline sales, which are not yet binding, four are covered by options to purchase, the report said. The report, citing various sources, said that Alenia Aermacchi, a subsidiary of Italian group Finmeccanica which is a member of the consortium, had obtained Kuwait's signature on the agreement a few days before Brazil announced that it had chosen to buy Gripen fighter planes made by Swedish company Saab. Brazil chose the...

On Jan. 15, Airbus Defence and Space started the testing campaign of the Eurofighter Typhoon multirole combat plane with Taurus air-launched stand-off precision missiles. The first flight took place at the Manching Military Air Systems Center, north of Munich, and involved Instrumented Production Aircraft 7 (IPA7), flown by Eurofighter Project Pilot Chris Worning. Taurus KEPD 350 is a German/Swedish missile that is manufactured by Taurus Systems GmbH, a partnership between MBDA Germany and Saab Dynamics. The missile has a range of +500 kilometres (300 mi), a speed of Mach 0.8-0.9 and stealth features. The first flight came after the successful...

Britain fails to seal multi-billion pound deal to sell 60 Eurofighter Typhoon jet fighters to the United Arab Emirates Defence group BAE's hopes of exporting its Typhoon fighter have been dealt a blow after the United Arab Emirates ended negotiations about buying the jet. The Gulf nation had been in talks over a multi-billion pound deal to buy 60 of the twin-engine supersonic fighters as it looks to upgrade its air force. "The UAE have advised that they have elected not to proceed with these proposals at this time," Britain's biggest defence company said in a statement as the market...

• Huge deal to sell Typhoon fighters to UAE in doubt • Implications for other Gulf arms deals after Iran nuclear talks If there were any remaining doubts that arms sales take precedence over human rights or concerns about exacerbating regional tensions, the British government has been unashamedly quashing them. UK prime minister David Cameron and his defence secretary Philip Hammond have been busy trying to persuade the rulers of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to buy British Typhoon jets, following the example of Saudi Arabia and Oman. The Saudis, the UK's largest arms customer, have bought 72 Typhoons,...

By David Cenciotti The first Eurofighter Typhoon of the so-called Tranche 3 standard, has started its flight tests at BAE Warton, UK. Tranche 3 is the latest version of the Typhoon which embedded hundreds of modifications to make the combat plane more attractive to current and potential export customers. Even if little has changed from an aesthetic point of view, the aircraft has a number of small panels on the fuselage that are there to accomodate the fitting of CFT (Conformal Fuel Tanks). A new internal structure in the nose secion was designed to accomodate wirings, power, cooling and electronics...

MBDA’s Storm Shadow cruise missile has been flown with a Eurofighter Typhoon for the first time, with the combination having got airborne from Decimomannu air base in Sardinia on 27 November. Two of the roughly 1.3t weapons were carried by the combat aircraft, using hardpoints usually occupied by external fuel tanks. Alenia Aermacchi Performed by Alenia Aermacchi using instrumented production aircraft 2, the first airborne carriage trial marks the latest stage in a process which will clear the more than 250km (460nm)-range weapon for use with the Eurofighter from 2015. The work falls within a Phase 2 enhancement programme being...

WASHINGTON — The United States is battling to win Qatar’s multi-billion-dollar fighter-jet competition. Industry sources said the administration of President Barack Obama has been lobbying the Gulf Cooperation Council emirate to select a U.S. warplane for Doha’s largest combat air project. The sources said the administration has succeeded in delaying Qatar’s tender, which included proposals from Britain and France. “After Saudi Arabia, the Qatar project will be the biggest aircraft procurement for years to come,” a source said. The sources said Qatar, which established an evaluation panel, was moving slowly in a tender for up to 72 advanced fighter-jets, a...

The path to a fully multi-role Eurofighter Typhoon is finally becoming clear. At a media briefing here tomorrow (Wednesday), the company hopes to announce the first test flight in Italy of an aircraft carrying the MBDA Storm Shadow cruise missile. The jet’s full operational clearance to drop smart bombs came recently. Meanwhile one of the prototypes will fly next spring with the Selex AESA radar. Neither the Storm Shadow nor the AESA radar is yet under contract. There have been media reports that Saudi Arabian money is funding these integrations. Laurie Hilditch, Eurofighter capability manager, told AIN here Monday that...

First it was Dassault with the Rafale and then it was Eurofighter with the Typhoon that competed for the favor of the UAE Air Force. In Oman, it was the Saab Gripen against the Typhoon. In Qatar, who knows? Around the world, Europe’s three rival fighters have been locked in virtual combat. For Europe this is not necessarily a good situation, but the result of Switzerland’s evaluation of the three–in which it first favored the Rafale and then selected Saab’s Gripen, could prove pivotal in other competitions. “This is a very bad situation,” said the head of the European Defence...

German Typhoons to be fully air-to-ground capable in 2017 The German Air Force is expecting to field a fully air-to-ground capable Eurofighter Typhoon combat aircraft in 2017, a senior military official said in late September. Speaking at the IQPC Close Air Support conference in London, Lieutenant Colonel Roland Runge, Section Head Tactical Reconnaissance, German Air Force, said that aircrew training with the Raytheon GBU-48 Enhanced Paveway II 1,000 lb precision-guided bomb will commence in 2014, ahead of an initial operating capability being declared in 2015/16. Full operating capability and NATO assignment of the Typhoon-GBU-48 combination will follow the year after....

British Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets nearly clashed with Turkish Air Force F-16s over Cyprus According to the Cyprus-based Famagusta Gazette, the RAF Typhoons based at Akrotiri, Cyprus, to provide the air defense of the island following the Syrian crisis, nearly battled with Turkish jets in a close encounter on Sept. 2. It looks like Turkey scrambled two F-16 fighter jets from Incirlik airbase, to intercept the British Typhoons that had allegedly violated the airspace over the occupied part of Cyprus. According to the details collected by the Cypriot media outlet, the UK Ministry of Defence and Cyprus Defence Minister confirmed...

Typhoon at 10 years: The king of swing Performance of Typhoon jet hailed in its first decade of flying Two of the Royal Air Force’s leading officers have hailed the performance of the Eurofighter Typhoon jet during its first decade of flying and since deliveries were made to the UK’s Royal Air Force (RAF) in 2003. With the addition of new technology developments over the last 10 years, the aircraft is now the world's only truly ‘swing’ role jet, able to switch from air-to-air to air-to-surface attack capabilities in the same mission. Praise indeed Air Vice-Marshal Edward Stringer, the RAF’s...