Typhoon

The Eurofighter Typhoon is a twin-engine, supersonic, canard delta wing multirole fighter built by Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH, the joint company of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo, for the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Spain. Designed as an air-superiority fighter, it first flew on 27 March 1994 and entered service with the German Air Force on 4 August 2003. By 30 June 2026, 611 production aircraft and seven prototypes had been built against a procurement total of 769, and the type holds the quick reaction alert task in most customer air forces.

Development

The design descends from the UK's Air Staff Target 403 of 1972 and West Germany's TKF-90 competition, won by a Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm concept with a cranked delta wing and close-coupled canards; BAe's Experimental Aircraft Programme demonstrator flew on 6 August 1986. The five-nation Future European Fighter Aircraft programme of 1983 split in 1985 when France demanded a carrier-capable version and a leading role, leaving the UK, West Germany, Italy and Spain to proceed while France built the Rafale.

Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH and the EuroJet engine consortium were formed in 1986 against a combined requirement of 765 aircraft, which the end of the Cold War cut to 620. The prototype flew in Bavaria on 27 March 1994, the production contract was signed on 22 December 1997, and the Typhoon name was adopted on 2 September 1998 alongside contracts for 148 Tranche 1 aircraft.

The UK's £425 million Project Centurion integrated Meteor, Storm Shadow and Brimstone, with release to service on 18 December 2018. A €1 billion AESA radar contract of 19 November 2014 has become three radars: the ECRS Mk0 (Kuwait and Qatar), the Hensoldt/Indra ECRS Mk1 for Germany and Spain, and Leonardo UK's ECRS Mk2 with electronic attack functions. Germany ordered 38 Tranche 4 aircraft on 11 November 2020, 15 Typhoon EK conversions in March 2022 and 20 more aircraft approved in October 2025; Italy ordered 24 on 23 December 2024 for €7.5 billion; Spain's Halcon I (20 Tranche 4) and Halcon II (25 Tranche 5) followed in 2022 and 2024.

Design

The Typhoon is a tailless delta canard with a 53-degree leading-edge sweep, intentionally relaxed stability and a quadruplex digital fly-by-wire system giving carefree handling. The structure is 82 % composite (70 % carbon fibre, 12 % glass fibre) for an airframe life of 6,000 hours, and masked engine faces, semi-recessed weapons and radar-absorbent coatings reduce the frontal radar cross-section. The aircraft weighs 11,000 kg (24,251 lb) empty and 23,500 kg (51,809 lb) at maximum take-off, and is cleared to +9/−3 g with a maximum speed of 2,495 km/h (Mach 2.35) at altitude.

Two Eurojet EJ200 turbofans each deliver 60 kN (13,500 lbf) dry and more than 90 kN (20,230 lbf) in afterburner, and Eurofighter quotes supercruise at Mach 1.5. The glass cockpit has three colour head-down displays, a wide-angle HUD, the Striker helmet-mounted symbology system, a Martin-Baker Mk.16A seat and a Direct Voice Input module covering some 26 non-critical functions. Sensors are the Euroradar Captor-M mechanically scanned pulse-Doppler radar or ECRS AESA, the PIRATE infrared search and track set fitted from Tranche 1 Block 5, and the Praetorian defensive aids sub-system with radar, missile and (on UK aircraft) laser warners, chaff, flares, ECM and a towed radar decoy, all fused with Link 16 data by the Attack and Identification System.

Armament

A 27 mm Mauser BK-27 revolver cannon with 150 rounds sits in the starboard wing root. Thirteen hardpoints, eight under the wings and five under the fuselage, carry more than 9,000 kg (19,800 lb) of stores. Air-to-air weapons are the AIM-120 AMRAAM and MBDA Meteor at beyond visual range and the AIM-132 ASRAAM, IRIS-T and AIM-9 Sidewinder at short range.

Air-to-surface capability arrived in stages: the UK's £73 million Change Proposal 193 of 2006 gave Tranche 1 Block 5 aircraft GBU-16 Paveway II and the Litening III designator, creating the RAF FGR4; Paveway IV followed in 2013, Storm Shadow and Taurus KEPD 350 trials were complete by January 2016 and Brimstone was first fired in July 2017. German aircraft carry four GBU-48 bombs and the Typhoon EK the AGM-88E AARGM, the type can carry up to six Marte ER anti-ship missiles, and SPEAR 3 integration is in progress. In May 2026 RAF aircraft in the Middle East received the APKWS laser-guided rocket for low-cost counter-UAV work.

Operational History

German Typhoons, first issued to Jagdgeschwader 73 at Laage in April 2004, assumed QRA on 3 June 2008. The Italian Air Force declared initial operational capability at Grosseto on 16 December 2005 and flew combat air patrols over Libya from 29 March 2011.

RAF No. 3 (F) Squadron took over QRA from the Tornado F3 on 29 June 2007. Ten Typhoons deployed to Gioia del Colle on 20 March 2011 for the Libyan no-fly zone, flying the type's first combat sortie on 21 March and dropping its first bomb, a GBU-16 designated by a Tornado GR4, on 12 April. Operation Shader strikes from Akrotiri began on 4 December 2015, and on 14 December 2021 an RAF Typhoon made the RAF's first operational air-to-air kill with the type, an ASRAAM against a drone near Al-Tanf, Syria. RAF Typhoons bombed Houthi sites in Yemen on 12 January 2024, shot down UAVs during the Iranian attack on Israel of 13 April 2024, and on 1 March 2026 a 12 Squadron aircraft operating from Qatar downed an Iranian UAV approaching Qatari airspace. As of August 2023 the RAF held 137 of its 160 aircraft, with 102 in service.

Saudi Arabia signed a £4.43 billion contract for 72 on 17 September 2007, completed in June 2017; RSAF Typhoons struck ISIS targets in Syria in February 2015 and fly in the Yemen campaign. Austria received 15 Tranche 1 aircraft, cut from 18 in June 2007, and put them on QRA in July 2008. Oman ordered 12 in December 2012, Kuwait 28 on 5 April 2016 for €7.957 billion, most in service by September 2025, and Qatar 24 in December 2017. Turkey signed in October 2025 for 20 new aircraft from the UK in an £8 billion package and is acquiring 24 second-hand airframes from Qatar and Oman.

Variants

• Tranche 1: First production standard, 148 aircraft, the last delivered in March 2008, air-defence configured; Block 5 added PIRATE and, with the UK's CP193 upgrade, became the RAF FGR4.
• Tranche 2: Second production batch, first delivered to the RAF on 21 October 2008, which carried the Phase 1 and 2 Enhancements that brought Paveway IV, Meteor and Storm Shadow.
• Tranche 3A: Late-Tranche 2 airframe with provisions for conformal fuel tanks and an AESA radar, ordered in July 2009; Kuwait's and Qatar's carry the ECRS Mk0.
• Tranche 4: Current production standard with the ECRS Mk1 radar and extended ground-attack fit, ordered by Germany and Spain.
• Tranche 5: Latest standard with updated avionics, electronic warfare suite and weapons, ordered by Spain, Germany and Turkey.
• Typhoon EK: Electronic warfare conversion of 15 German aircraft with escort jammer pods, wingtip emitter location systems and the AGM-88E AARGM.
• Two-seat Typhoon: Combat-capable trainer; the RAF reduced 16 early two-seaters to spares from 2018.