BAE Systems

The Aircraft of British Aerospace and BAE SYSTEMS 1977 - 2017 111

EAP to EurofightEr tyPhoon

The first two prototypes flew within a

fortnight of each other. DA1 98+29 was

piloted by Peter Weger on 27 March from

MBB’s plant at Manching and Chris Yeo

took DA2 ZH588 into the air from Warton

on 6 April 1994. It had been planned that

DA1 would make 20 flights from

Manching and the transfer to Warton

where it would receive the UK military

registration ZH586 and continue testing

from there. Not surprisingly this proposal

was dropped and DA1 remained in

Germany. †

Development
aircraft

Registration Company/

Place/

Country

First flight Flight test tasks Last flight &

current

status

DA1 98+29 MBB/
Manching/
Germany

27/3/94 Flight control system,

Voice input controls,

IRIS Missile tests,

Arrestor hook

21/12/05

Deutsches

Museum Ober

Schleissheim,

Munich

DA2 ZH588 BAE/Warton/
UK

6/4/94 Flight control system,

carefree handling,

low speed handling,

Flight Refuelling,

Painted black

29/1/07

RAF Museum,

Hendon

DA3 MM-X602 Aeritalia/
Caselle/Italy

4/6/95 Engine, Fuel tanks,

27mm cannon

7/2/06

Turin-Caselle

DA4 (Twin-seater) ZH590 BAE/Warton/
UK

14/3/97 Twin-seater handling,

Radar, Avionics,

AMRAAM missile

firing, AAR

13/12/06

Imperial War

Museum,

Duxford

DA5 98+30 MBB/
Manching/
Germany

24/2/97 Radar, Avionics,

Demonstrations

13/10/07

Ground

exhibit

DA6 (Twin-seater) XCE16-01 CASA/Getafe/
Spain

31/8/96 Flight envelope,

helmet development,

environment trials at

Boscombe Down

Crashed

21/11/02

DA7 MM-X603 Aeritalia/
Caselle/Italy

27/1/97 Navigation,

Communications,

Weapons, Sidewinder

and AMRAAM trials

10/9/07

Cameri

Neither of the first two aircraft were

fitted with radar or the EJ200 engine and

initially flew with the RB199 that was

fitted to the Tornado. All subsequent

Eurofighters had the EJ200 and DA1 and

DA2 received the EJ200 engines in 1996

and 1998 respectively. DA1 made the

type’s first public display at the ILA Berlin

in May 1996 with DA2 appearing at the

Farnborough Air Show later the same

year. In June 2000 ZH588 was repainted

all-black, when 490 pressure transducers

were attached to its right side to measure

‡ BAE SYSTEMS DA4 ZH590 with drop tanks during air-to-air refuelling trials with VC10 K4

ZD242 over the North Sea. (BAE SYSTEMS North West Heritage)