BAE Systems

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

Hunters, Lightnings, Strikemasters,

Tornadoes and Hawks an order from it for

the Typhoon was far from surprising. An

order came from Saudi Arabia for 72

aircraft came in 2006 to be delivered from

the Warton production line and 66 of

these had been delivered by the end of

2016. There has long been talk of more
      orders for the Typhoon from Saudi Arabia
      and the effectiveness of Typhoon in
      airstrikes against Yemeni and Islamic State
      insurgents appeared to be giving BAE
      Systems increasing confidence that it will
      receive more orders from that source
      soon. Eurofighter made a very strong
      sales pitch in India but after a long period
      of uncertainty the Indians ordered the
      French-built Rafale. In December 2012,
      after a six-year gap in any export orders,
      Oman became the aircraft’s seventh
      customer and ordered a total of twelve
      aircraft for delivery from the British
      assembly line. In April 2015 there was a
      strong fillip to the sales programme when
      Kuwait ordered 28 Tranche 3 aircraft,
      these to be delivered from the Italian
      plant at Caselle, Turin from 2019.

In service

The Royal Air Force established its first

operational Typhoon squadrons at

Coningsby, Lincolnshire, in 2004, with a

subsequent squadron at Leuchars, Fife, in

2008. These initial aircraft were
      designated as T1s which are Tranche 1,
      batch 1 twin-seat trainers while Typhoon
      T1As are Tranche 1, batch 2 two-seat
      trainers. The F2 is the single-seat fighter
      variant. The RAF’s Typhoon force was
      declared operational in the air defence
      role on 21 June 2007, when the aircraft
      started taking on the Quick Reaction Alert

(QRA) commitment, maintaining aircraft

at 24/7 readiness to counter threats to the

UK’s air space armed with AMRAAM/

ASRAAM (Advanced medium-/short-

range air-to-air missiles).

Owing to the need to deploy Typhoon

to ‘Operation Herrick’ in Afghanistan 2008,

urgent UK-only work was conducted on

Tranche 1 Block 5 aircraft to develop an

air-to-ground capability. These aircraft

were built as new or upgraded from F2s

and were declared as multi-role in July

2008, gaining the designation FGR4 for

the single seat version or T3 for the

twin-seater. They can carry the Litening

Laser Designator Pod and Paveway 2,

Enhanced Paveway 2 and 1000lb freefall

bomb. The RAF’s FGR4s became

operational in the air-to-ground role on 1

July 2008.

Other squadrons are based as follows;

RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire, houses No. 3

Squadron; No. 11 Squadron; No. 29

Squadron, OCU Tactical pilot training and

evaluation; and No. 41 Test & Evaluation

Squadron. RAF Lossiemouth, Moray,

Scotland houses No. 1 Squadron; No. 2

Squadron and No. 6 Squadron. RAF

Mount Pleasant, East Falkland, Falkland

Islands, houses No. 1435 Flight where the

Typhoon took over the Islands air defence

from Tornado F3s in September 2009. Six

Typhoons were based in Italy during

‘Operation Ellamy’ against Libya, four of

which operated in the ground attack role.

In the following year four aircraft were

based at RAF Northolt to provide

immediate air defence during the London

Olympics.

The RAF is the largest Eurofighter

Typhoon customer and its 140th aircraft

was delivered in December 2016. It is

receiving 40 Tranche 3A aircraft to

supplement its 53 Tranche 1 giving a total

of 160 when deliveries are completed. It

was planned that the Tranche 1 aircraft

would be retired in 2018, but in

November 2015 the UK Government

announced that it would extend the life

of the multi-role Typhoon for 10 extra

years up to 2040 and would be able to

create 2 additional squadrons. This would

provide a total of 7 front line squadrons,

consisting of approximately 12 aircraft per

squadron.

The Luftwaffe received 35 Tranche 1

aircraft with the final delivery in 2008

which were subsequently modified to

Block 5 standard. The Tranche 1 aircraft

were joined by 77 Tranche 2 Eurofighters,

and from Tranche 3A production the

Germans will receive 31 aircraft. The

Tranche 3B orders were cancelled by the

German Government so with its last

delivery in 2018 the Luftwaffe will have a

total fleet of 140 Eurofighters. The

Luftwaffe’s aircraft are divided into three

tactical air wings and employed in the air

defence role, though Germany is now

considering expanding the aircraft’s role

and adopting some of the RAF’s Typhoons

capabilities.

In what proved to be a very politically

controversial move, in 2001 Austria

ordered 30 Typhoons including six

two-seat trainers. Budgetary