Despite the disappointment of its failure to attract procurements from Switzerland and Finland, the quadrinational Eurofighter Typhoon program continues to push ahead with an ambitious series of upgrades mapped out for the coming years. The partners have already decided on some of them, while further into the future packages of work remain unfunded or not finalized.
For the wider Typhoon export campaign, further orders might require upgrades. Many believe, for example, that a long-standing Saudi requirement for 48, or possibly 72 more Typhoons depends on the availability of an aircraft equipped with ECRS.Mk 2 radar, a large area display, and other enhancements.
Additionally, the work conducted on upgrading Typhoon promises to “gives us a great platform on which to build Tempest,” according to Andrew Mallery-Blyth, BAE Systems’ Typhoon Operational Requirements Manager. It now seems likely that some specific technologies for Tempest might come first on Typhoon but, perhaps more importantly, Typhoon could provide a proving ground for a much more rapid and agile approach to expanding capability.
“We will be able to update the mission systems at a far greater pace of change than we can achieve now. We will unlock an aircraft that can evolve really, really quickly,” explained Mallery-Blyth. "We can't necessarily plan on the natural direction of travel now, but we don't need to because we're designing in the capacity to evolve really quickly in whatever direction is required by the capability that is required in that timeframe.”
Different Eurofighter core and export customers inevitably have different requirements and priorities, and it would be easy for the program to diverge, or to become mired in a lengthy process of trying to rationalize different priorities into a single capability development plan. The Eurofighter partners have recognized the need for greater agility and customization, while still keeping a common joint product, consolidating the different workstreams into one product to form a firm baseline for future capability evolution.
Consequently, in August 2021 Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH and NETMA, the NATO Eurofighter & Tornado Management Agency, signed a €300 million contract for what it called the Consolidation Package Step Two & Three - Phase 1 Contract. It launched the program with industry pre-funding and the industry partners undertook significant engineering activities that made the contract award possible and recognized the delivery timescales required.
The Consolidation Package will underpin the Long-Term Evolution (LTE) plan, enabling and facilitating the next steps in the capability evolution of the Eurofighter Typhoon, making the weapons system more capable and more versatile for end-user air forces. It will see some capabilities rolled out across the whole fleet of mechanically-scanned radar (M-Scan) and electronically scanned radar (E-Scan) aircraft, but will also enable specific national capability upgrades. Those include some major capability upgrades such as Britain’s ECRS.Mk 2 radar and the German Eurofighter EK defense suppression or “Wild Weasel” variant. They also include some relatively modest steps, some of them incorporated as “National Deltas”, such as the UK’s new Sceptre mission planner, due for introduction later this year.
The current UK Typhoon baseline standard incorporates the first step of the Phase 3 Enhancement package, known as P3EA, as well as some National Delta software products. That added Brimstone capability to the other Project Centurion upgrades (Storm Shadow in P2EA and Meteor in P2EB) whose initial integration enabled under P2EA.
P3EA improves the integration of the Meteor long-range air-to-air missile, with an improved human-machine interface in the cockpit, and also provided a capability to integrate the Litening 5 targeting pod. The P3EB software comes in several increments including P3EB1, P3EB2, and P3EB GOY (green, orange, yellow). They will allow E-Scan functionality for the ECRS.Mk 0 radar now being delivered to Qatar and Kuwait and integrates (or enhances the existing integrations of) a number of U.S.-supplied GBU-series precision weapons. The UK is not taking P3EB, but some of its features are being incorporated via National Delta products.
The P3EC software comes in three numbered steps. P3EC Step 1 incorporates some specific changes to accommodate the German ECRS.Mk 1 E-Scan radar, while P3EC Step 2 will bring more general E-scan enhancements, especially in the air-to-surface role. P3EC Step 3 is the next standard planned for the UK Typhoon, and is due in service in the UK in 2025. P3EC will allow the integration of the new ECRS.Mk 2 radar, and will also incorporate some features from P3EB GOY, including IFF transponder enhancements and civilian navigation standards (such as Reduced Vertical Separation Minima). P3EC Step 3 will also introduce integrated operational mission support (giving intelligent or more automated mission data), a necessary step given the new radar’s even greater dependence on mission data.
The P4E package, expected in late 2027 or 2028, will introduce task-based management for the new radar (and for the M-Scan radar, too), as well as Spear Cap 3 and Spear EW munitions and a new smart dispenser system. The aerodynamic modification kit will also likely align with P4E, bringing some improved aerodynamic performance (especially in terms of angle of attack), but more significantly a wider range of weapon configurations, including asymmetric loadouts and the carriage of heavier stores on the outboard pylons.
In the longer term, industry is looking at the possibility of removing the head-up display when a new large area cockpit display gets incorporated, though that might require improvements to the helmet if it is to become the primary instrument being used by the pilot to fly the aircraft. That could, in turn, drive a move to adopt the new Striker II helmet.