LONDON – The four nations behind development of the Typhoon fighter are expected to announce they are moving ahead with a program to fit an active electronically scanned array (AESA) to the jet when the Eurofighter partner nations’ ministerial meeting takes place in Edinburgh, Scotland, Wednesday.
Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain are expected to commit an amount approaching £1 billion (US $1.6 billion) for the Selex-ES Euroradar consortium to complete development of the Captor-E radar, which is vital for Typhoon to retain its position as a leading fighter for its current customers and to enhance export prospects.
High ranking ministerial representatives including British Defence Procurement Minister Philip Dunne are expected to make an announcement following the partner nations' meeting scheduled at Selex's AESA radar development center in Edinburgh.
A Eurofighter spokesman declined to give any details of the AESA agreement expected to be unveiled but said he anticipated "an announcement of a major milestone for the Eurofighter program and the core partners which will reflect on the maturity of the program in a positive way."
A MoD spokesperson declined to comment on the expected announcement beyond saying, "an announcement on the future of the AESA radar capability will be made in due course."
One executive who asked not to be named said it wasn't clear whether the event would involve a contract signing or a major financial commitment by the partners to push ahead with the development.
The executive may just be hedging his bets because the program has been marked by long delays by the governments in obtaining funding and commitments to develop an AESA radar.
Typhoon is the last of the major Western fighter aircraft to be fitted with AESA. US and French rivals have operational jets flying with the new radar technology while Sweden has a production standard system being built by Selex for new generation Gripen jets.
Euroradar has adopted a different technical approach to rival Western radar developers, including a large antenna and a repositioner able to tilt unlike other systems where the antenna is fixed.
The tilting repositioner will give the Typhoon a considerably larger field of view than its rivals.
Eurofighter boss Alberto Gutierrez said at the Farnborough International Airshow in July he was confident the AESA deal would be signed by the end of the year.
Some of the nations were in a position to sign by mid-summer but others required national procurement approval.
British Prime Minister David Cameron announced at the air show that the Ministry of Defence was pushing ahead with its own £72 million E-Scan Extended Assessment Phase risk reduction project.
The British work is running in parallel with the four-nation development AESA program known as Radar 1+.
Eurofighter showed a Typhoon fitted with the Euroradar AESA at Farnborough although it had not undertaken any flight trials at that time. ■
Email: achuter@defensenews.com.
