Eurofighter Typhoon Gets Multiple New Attack Weapons — Meteor, Brimstone II & Storm Shadow

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington DC) Many countries likely plan to fly the Eurofighter Typhoon well into future decades, due to a high number of ongoing upgrades. The fast-moving attack fighter jet, which seems to align strategically and in configuration with U.S. F-15s and F-16s to an extent, entered service in 2003 about 20 years ago. Nevertheless, many participating Typhoon countries, which include Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria, the U.K., Saudi Arabia and Oman, have embraced a handful of weapons upgrades intended to propel the fighter into future decades.

The combat-tested European Typhoon fighter has in recent years been armed and upgraded with new weapons, firepower, targeting technologies, radar and sensors to ensure its viability for future war,This not only makes sense but also parallels key U.S. efforts to sustain and upgrade the operational functionality and effectiveness of some of its combat tested platforms such as the F-15 and F-16. These two U.S. fighters have been upgraded so much they could almost be described as being new planes, given that they have new weapons, radar, computing, avionics and advanced sensors which dramatically improve performance.

New Eurofighter Weapons

For example the Eurofighter has in recent years been flight testing 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, a Typhoon pilot told me a few years ago

Typhoon pilots also say that air-to-air capability and overall performance is massively increased by what he the aircraft’s “thrust to weight ratio.” Defined as the weight of the engine compared to the amount of thrust the engine generates, the thrust to weight ratio is a key indicator of speed, maneuverability and aircraft performance.

The Typhoon can travel at Mach 2, and the Typhoon engines’ thrust to weight ratio is 9.3 to 1, making it among best in the world, comparable to the F-22 Raptor. This is accomplished in part by power emanating from the two Eurojet 2000 engines on board the aircraft and the light weight of the aircraft. The Typhoon is built with 70-percent carbon fiber composite and is therefore said to be fast and very agile.

Prior software upgrades have enabled the Typhoon to operate with what’s called swing-roll capability, the technical capacity to perform several missions simultaneously such as fire missiles and drop bombs, a Typhoon pilot told me.