Part of that ‘mood change’, at least in theUK, can be attributed to the intention ofBritish Governments to rebalance the economyaway from the finance and services sectorand boost manufacturing. The UK PrimeMinister, David Cameron, has pledged that development of Eurofighter capabilities will be prioritised.

It is also part of the MoD’s ten-year equip-ment spending plan to 2022. Support forTyphoon development, in the face of difficulteconomic times, is also now coming from outside the traditional European Eurofighter partner nations and from export customers.

They can see the chance to not only boosttheir air forces with a more capable version ofthe fighter, but also to invest in and sharetechnology that will feed into their own aero-space industries. For instance, in 2012 SaudiArabia took on a bigger role on the programme, with a seat on NETMA (NATO

In December 2012, BAE andEurofighter celebrated a key winin Oman – with 12 Typhoons andan additional eight Hawk AJTtrainers. It is one of a number ofopportunities that are now com-ing good for an aircraft whose potency continues to grow as it matures.

While the mainstream mediahas often misunderstood Typhoon seeing it asa Cold War air defence fighter, the plan to increase its multi-role capabilities has alwaysbeen there.

“What it’s been designed for, first and fore-most…” Says Bob Smith, Engineering Director,Combat Air, at BAE Systems, “is an air superi-ority fighter. It’s highly agile, and has a bigwing with 13 weapon stations. Those 13 stations create the ability to have quite a flexible ‘swing-role’ weapon load. You can

have air-to-air or air-to-ground but the key capability is to have the mix — you can dothem both in the same mission.”

Ironically, given some perceptions, thecomplexity of Eurofighter’s four partner nations and their related aerospace champi-ons, BAE, EADS and Alenia, has producedsome advantages.

It has provided guaranteed sales to fourEuropean air forces. It has meant that the programme has been insulated to some extent from politician’s whims. And, and mostimportantly, the partners have the resourcesto self-fund improved capabilities.

While gaining consensus in some areasmight have cost some time, the Eurofighterpartners have kept the faith by funding key technologies and conducting R&D ready for the mood to change against a background of dif ficult global economic challenges.

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Tim Robinson is Editorof AerospaceInternational, the monthly magazine ofthe Royal AeronauticalSociety. Here he reports as a GuestAuthor for EurofighterWORLD.

TYPHOON –THE BEST IS YET TO COMEA COMBINATION OF STRONG FUNDING, DEMANDING EXPORT CUSTOMERS AND HIGH-LEVEL POLITICAL BACKINGMEANS EUROFIGHTER TYPHOON IS NOW SET TO UNLOCK ITS TRUE MULTI-ROLE POTENTIAL.

The Helmet Mounted Symbology System (HMSS) is a brand-new precision piece of kit, opening up a new era in pilot capability.

Eurofighter and Tornado ManagementAgency) and increased power in deciding development priorities. This has already borne fruit.

It’s a win-win situation. Eurofighter customers get a more capable fighter, newforeign partners get technology transfer andset the pace, and the Eurofighter consortiumitself gets a more exportable product to buildextra sales. It also allows all parties to sharecosts across the customer base.

These developments represent a signifi-cant sea-change in defence procurement.Previously UK–funded military aerospace projects had entered service with Britain’sarmed services, to then be available for export. Moving into the future, export customer-funded technology and integration,will now trickle back to HM armed forces.

Whilst this may be a reversal of what wasonce the status quo, one constant factor thatwill remain is that ‘as used by the RAF’ will always be a valuable cachet and seal of quality.

The final factor influencing this accelera-tion in Typhoon development is an awarenessthat, after ten years of COIN and the war ofterror, future conflicts are likely to be com-pletely different than the permissive air envi-ronments of the past decade.

The ground-centric emphasis of the pastdecade is now being replaced with a renewedinterest in the sea and air environments — perhaps best exemplified by the US ‘pivot’ toAsia-Pacific. And while the UAS sector

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continues to expand, there are questions overhow suited many of the current platformswould be to any country or opponent witheven a basic air defence or fighter capability.

Indeed, while the past decade has seenonly one clean sheet western fighter designemerge in the form of the F-35, the referencecombat aircraft that the Typhoon was designed to beat, the Su-27 (and its deriva-tives) has now been joined by new potentialthreat aircraft in the form of the PAK-FA, J-20and J-31.

But there is also another aspect in that thesuccess of stealth or low-observable plat-forms since the F-117’s combat debut hasspurred anti-stealth radar and detection tech-nology by both friendly and not-so friendlypowers. Bi-static passive detection methodsthreaten to erode the edge of stealth aircraftand their unique advantage.

Put simply, while any new fighter now willbe designed with LO features built-in, thecoming proliferation of anti-stealth technology will reducethe gap between a stealth aircraft and a non-stealth aircraft with a good jammerand EW systems.

This means Typhoon, withits advanced DASS (DefensiveAid Sub System), towed decoys and supersonic ma-noeuvrability will remain effective even into the post-stealth era.

Eurofighter progress hassometimes been subtle – butit has been there. Part of thedifficulty in assessing thatprogress is the fact that theEurofighter is very much anavionics and software-ledfighter – with little to show onthe outside. The other hasbeen the ‘catch all’ terminologyof the three ‘Tranches’, sepa-rate umbrella agreements between the partner nationsand the Eurofighter consortium.

Says Bob Smith: “Wherewe are today is on the firstbatch of enhancements thatgive greater capability in theair-to-surface role.” He says:“For this batch of enhance-ments to Tranche 2 we are doing them in twophases, Phase A (P1EA) and Phase B (P1EB).Phase A is finished and we have delivered allthe evidence for clearance to service to thefour launch nations. When the UK has gonethrough its release to service process, thisnew capability will be put on to UK aircraft.That will give ‘swing-role’ capability with addi-tional improvements to the man-machine interface.”

This will enable pilots to simultaneouslyand consecutively employ both A-A and A-Gweapons. The updates also include integrationof Paveway IV and EGBU16 laser and GPSguided bombs, as well as the (HMSS HelmetMounted Symbology System) now beingopened up for air-to-surface use — an updatethat will give the Typhoon pilot the ability tosimply glance at ground targets to slew thetargeting pod on them and designate them.Says Smith: “The helmet is a brand-new preci-sion piece of kit, opening up a new era in pilotcapability.”

Other near-term enhancements, accordingto Smith, include the Iris-T A-A missile integra-tion having some digital updates, upgrades tothe DASS and also the multifunction informa-tion distribution systems (MIDS). Additionally,the Typhoon is set to receive improvements tothe attack and navigation computer redundancy,along with upgraded IFF.

Differences between Tranche 1 and 2 havenow been rationalised with an upgrade pack-age to Tranche 1 aircraft called Drop 2 whichis now set to be rolled out by the RAF to its en-tire T1 fleet. The upgrade package covers en-hancements to a wide range of avionic sys-tems including displays, attack and navigation, DASS and communication.

Top: Eurofighter Typhoon in action during Operation EllamyBelow: A Tranche 3 fuselage takes shape...

fighter, for example, has been beefed up totake the 100kg extra weight of the E-ScanAESA radar, which could enter service in2017. Additionally, the high-speed datatransfer capacity has also been increasedon the Tranche 3A to take advantage ofthese new sensors.

These key changes are further evidenceof a ‘future proofed’ aircraft ready to accepta significant leap in its capabilities. WithMeteor and Storm Shadow next on the agendafor integration (Meteor was fired from aTyphoon in late 2012), future weapons couldalso include the UK’s stand-off precisionSPEAR. Smith says that the Typhoon’s AESAradar integration is likely to be phased inover two or three steps, with a baselineradar which will be followed by a more sophisticated follow-on version.

THE SUPER TYPHOON OF 2045

Bob Smith says the aircraft has “probablyanother 30-40 years” of service life ahead ofit. Indeed, given the current trend of militaryaircraft, that may be a conservative esti-mate. So, what might any hypothetical‘Super Typhoon’ of 2045 look like?

The first RAF Typhoons to receive this pack-age have been the fighters participating inthis year’s Red Flag exercises at Nellis, withthe rest of front-line squadrons to follow.Additionally, other Eurofighter nations arealso looking with interest at upgrading theirTranche 1 fighters with this Drop 2 package.

Enhancement package 2, says Smith, iscurrently being ‘debated now’ and there is afocus on Storm Shadow and MeteorBVRAAM, along with MIDS upgrades, enhanced on-board data recording and upgrades to ASRAAM.

One concrete example of the next stageof Eurofighter development is already herein the form of the Tranche 3A Typhoon currently at Warton (see photo on previouspage) and destined for the RAF. Only twosmall bumps on the rear of the fuselage area giveaway that this is not your normalEurofighter. These are rear mounting attachments for conformal fuel tanks (CFTs).

The Tranche 3, has increased fuel capacityand there are also new fuel dump nozzlesunder each wing. Key fuselage frames arealso strengthened for the extra weight ofthe 4,500lb CFTs. There are also furtherchanges under the skin. The nose of the

First, for the UK customer it will have tobe interoperable with the F-35 providing theRAF with a flexible and dynamic air controlcapability. It is also likely to incorporate anew glass cockpit as part of a mid-life update, leveraging consumer technologysuch as iPad-style large displays.

More futuristically, Smith also talks ofthe Typhoon of 2045 being a ‘hybrid’ airplatform – incorporating new levels of autonomy to help the pilot. He says a hybridmanned vehicle with autonomous capabilityis an interesting byproduct of unmanned vehicles and manned vehicles.

Smith notes that the Typhoon’s advancedMMI (along with ‘carefree handling’), whichallows the pilot to concentrate on the mission, mean it is “not a far stretch of the

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imagination” to take this even further.Related research work already underwaymay at some point turn a single-seatTyphoon into a ‘virtual twin-seater’ with thesecond ‘AI’ crewmember providing enhanced situational awareness, suggest-ing courses of action, or perhaps even flyingthe aircraft back to base should the pilot become incapacitated. Although thissounds like science fiction, some of BAE’swork on autonomy for the civil ASTRAEAUAS project is already laying the ground-work for this advanced ‘computer co-pilot’.

Aided by a smart AI as a ‘virtual WSO’,the potential ‘Super Typhoon’ pilot of 2045,with its AESA radar, thrust vectoring and extra range thanks to CFTs will be part of anextremely capable multi-role platform.

As the F-15E Strike Eagle demonstrates,converting an air superiority fighter into amultirole strike aircraft produces a phenom-enal platform. Says Bob Smith: “If you reallywant to build a multirole combat aircraftthen build an extremely capable fighter first.”

Smith says that the Super Typhoon of2045 might also include LO tweaks such asstealth pods (such as proposed for theInternational F/A-18E/F Super Hornet) orother measures to reduce its RCS – and itmight also become a UAV or UCAV missioncommander.

Explains Smith: “By that time there willbe a lot more unmanned vehicles flyingaround and it would be an interesting con-cept, because of the interoperability capa-bility, to operate a few UAVs from a Typhooncockpit.” Potentially, the Typhoon pilotcould then command an AIwingman, perhaps to clear airdefences out of the way. “Youcould see yourself being in a situation where not only haveyou got onboard capability onyour own aircraft but you are con-trolling airborne capability too.”

Again while this might seem like sciencefiction, the UK has already undertaken ‘UAVwingman’ trials using a Tornado and BAC-1-11(as a surrogate UAV). Indeed, one could alsoimagine that the Eurofighter’s direct voiceinput (DVI) system (where the pilot can already set radio frequencies, check fueland even designate targets) could even beused to command robot UCAV wingman.

It may have taken a while to get to thispoint, but the full gale force of Typhoon isnow set to be unleashed.

Hang on to your hats.

A version of this article was originally publishedin Aerospace International - to find out morelog onto: www.aerosociety.com

A glimpse of what the Eurofighter Typhoon might look like in the years to come

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