Maiden flight of Eurofighter Typhoon with Tranche 2 avionics
The first Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft, loaded with Tranche 2 avionics, took to the air today at BAE Systems' Warton facility. Designated as Instrumented Production Aircraft Six (IPA6) this Typhoon will be used for Tranche 2 flight tests, and its main task will be to accomplish Type Acceptance for Block 8 aircraft.Tranche 2 features focus mainly on the new mission computers, which deliver higher processing and memory capacity required for the integration of future weapons such as Meteor, Storm Shadow and Taurus. Differences in the build standard to Tranche 1 are related to changes in production technology or obsolescence.
The Eurofighter consortium will deliver 251 aircraft, 91 to the United Kingdom, 79 to Germany (including 15 aircraft originally contracted by Austria), 47 to Italy and 34 to Spain. Deliveries of Tranche 2 Eurofighter Typhoons to all the four partner nations will begin in the summer of 2008 and are scheduled to run until 2013.
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