The Aircraft of British Aerospace and BAE SYSTEMS 1977 - 2017 113
EAP to EurofightEr tyPhoon
Tranche 2 deliveries began to the
partner nations in late 2008. These aircraft
had; a strengthened undercarriage and
fuselage for carrying heavier weapons,
front fuselage modifications to facilitate
future radar and sensor updates and new
mission computers providing the level of
processing and memory needed for the
sophisticated weapons within the
aircraft’s armoury.
Following on from the development
aircraft and built as part of the first
tranche of production aircraft, the first
five IPAs (Instrumented Production
Aircraft) are heavily involved in the
development programme, most
particularly the radar, flight refuelling and
air-to-ground capability. These were
numbered IPA1-IPA5 and just like the DA
batch these aircraft did not fly in
numerical order. Three flew in April 2002;
Italian-assembled IPA2 MM.X614 was the
first in the air from Turin-Caselle on 5th
April, next came EADS IPA3 98+03 on 8th
April and the first British-assembled
production aircraft IPA1 followed seven
days later from Warton. IPA1 is
supporting drop tests from Warton, IPA2
is currently engaged in the integration of
the deep strike MBDA Storm Shadow
missile. This builds on the ground trials of
the weapon and two successful releases
of Storm Shadow from Italian IPA2 in- In addition, further firing trials have
been completed with MBDA’s Meteor
Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air missile.
The sixth in a series of firings completed
Typhoon
production line at
Warton in 2004.
Tranche 1 aircraft in
production for the
RAF with ZJ802 on
the extreme left.
(BAE Systems)