by Kris Osborn, Warrior

The famous multi-national Eurofighter Typhoon fighter-jet exploded  into service 20 years ago,  just a few years before the arrival of the US F-22 in 2005, yet it has received such a high volume of advanced weapons and technology upgrades that it is expected to fly successfully into the 2040s and beyond.  The Typhoon is not as stealthy as the 5th-generation F-22, yet it is engineered with an F-22-like speed of Mach 2 and excellent thrust to weight ratio. 

While the airframes of the Typhoon can be traced back several decades, they have remained quite viable and received maintenance and sustainment in recent years. 

 Airframes themselves can remain viable for decades provided they receive sufficient and regular maintenance with structural reinforcement as needed.  Therefore, with a solid airframe, a fighter jet can be upgraded with new weapons, software, sensors, computing, avionics and communications technology such that it is an almost entirely different aircraft than it was at its inception.  The aircraft originally began with the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain but has moved forward to fly with many countries such as Austria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwaitt.

Thrust to Weight Ratio

The Typhoon achieves an F-22 thrust-to-weight ratio with its lightweight materials and Eurojet 2000 engines; the aircraft is built with 70-percent carbon fiber composites. Software upgrades to the Typhoon have enabled what is called a “swing-roll” capability, something a Typhoon pilot told me at the Farnborough airshow in 2014 which enables the fighter to perform multiple functions at one time such as fire missiles and drop bombs.

The Eurofighter has been armed with an entirely new generation of weapons in recent  years, technologies which drastically improve the range, reach, accuracy and lethality of its attack capabilities.  The aircraft has 13 hardpoints and the GPS and laser-guided bombs carried by the Typhoon include 2,000, 1,000 and 500 pound GBUs and the Paveway IV, a 500-pound laser-guided bomb.

The Typhoon has, for instance, been armed with a European missile referred to as the Storm Shadow, a highly lethal air-launched missile used to destroy Saddam Hussein’s bunkers at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Known for its accuracy, the Storm Shadow is able to achieve precision targeting and fire two missiles through the exact same hole in an enemy bunker target. The weapon used a special double charge explosive effect, called a BROACH warhead, which includes an initial penetrating blast followed by a controlled detonation of the main warhead using a variable delay fuze. 

The Storm Shadow, also on the Royal Air Force’s Tornado aircraft, is built with a stealthy external configuration, multi-mode GPS and inertial navigation precision guidance system.  Eurofighter was armed with a European missile called Meteor, which significantly increases what pilots refer to as the “no-escape range” – the distance or point at which an air-to-air adversary cannot fly away from or “escape” an approaching missile.

The Typhoon enhancements have also included the addition of a short-range stand-off missile called Brimstone II, a precision-guided weapon that has also been in service on the British Tornado aircraft. Originally designed as a tank-killer weapon Brimstone II is engineered with an all-weather, highly-precise millimeter wave seeker. In Afghanistan many years ago, a Brimstone was used to destroy an Al Qaeda  traveling at 60km per hour. The Typhoon has also been armed with a European missile called Meteor which greatly increases what pilots refer to as the “no-escape range” – the distance or point at which an air-to-air adversary has no ability to fly away from or “escape” an approaching missile,

Typhoon Sensing 

The sensing technology on board the Typhoon fighter is called Pirate, or passive infrared and targeting equipment. It is a combination of infrared search and track and forward-looking infrared sensors. The Typhoon’s cockpit has three large LCD displays which the pilot can switch between when assessing mission requirements. Many of the displays include situational awareness information such as moving digital maps, atmospheric information, sensor data and targeting information

The Typhoon’s active electronically scanned array radar, or AESA, provides pilots with an expanded field of view compared to most existing radar, as it can track multiple targets at one time. The AESA provides a mechanical ability to rapidly reposition the receiver to increase the area it can pick up signals. The new radar is designed to work with other on-board sensors such as forward-looking infrared sensors and passive infrared tracking technology to locate stealth aircraft with a low radar cross section. 

Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University