11th December 2017 - 09:12 GMT | by Grant Turnbull in London
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Leonardo is preparing to begin the next testing phase for its next-generation Captor-E active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, which will eventually equip the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft destined for Kuwait.
The first phase of test flights for the Leonardo AESA radar, which included unpowered and powered flights in the UK, wrapped up earlier this year with ‘excellent results’, according Alastair Morrison, SVP radar & advanced targeting at Leonardo Airborne and Space Systems.
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There have been some really good long-range tracking results and we have been able to test the radar’s Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mode as well,’ he explained.
The next stage will see a second Captor-E flight test asset – also known as an instrumented production aircraft (IPA) – begin flights in Germany ‘very shortly’.
According to Eurofighter, this will utilise IPA 8, a German-built test aircraft.
‘Currently we’ve been working with the first asset in the UK, having the second asset will allow us to run multiple programmes in parallel,’ said Morrison.
The next 12 months will see Leonardo perform a series of ‘high intensity’ flight trials with incremental software updates to enable the required capability – known as the Phase 3 Enhancement (P3E) standard - to be available for the first deliveries to the Kuwait Air Force.
The hardware has ‘an enormous amount of potential’ for future enhancements, said Morrison, owing to the
amount of power it can generate because of its large antenna. Extra capabilities such as
communications, passive use, electronic attack and advanced surface tracking techniques could also be on the cards in the future.
The Kuwaiti Eurofighters – 28 in total comprising 22 single seat and six twin-seat – will undergo final assembly by Leonardo Aircraft in Turin, Italy.
Updating Shephard on the Kuwaiti progress, Giancarlo Mezzanatto, Eurofighter Programme Unit VP at Leonardo Aircraft said that production activities had already begun in the second half of 2016 and ‘are currently in line with the baseline plan and, in some cases, ahead of schedule’.
Mezzanatto confirmed that the first deliveries are scheduled for 2020, with the assembly phase now beginning.
‘The wing skins of the first left hand wing at Leonardo and right hand wing at Airbus Defence & Space in Spain have already completed and the assembly phase will start before the end of 2017,’ he explained.
The first rear fuselage section is going to start the ‘Stage 2’ assembly phase at Leonardo in early 2018, while the ‘Stage 1’ assembly phase is already running at BAE Systems’ Warton site for the first five aircraft.
The centre fuselage section, produced by Airbus Defence & Space in Germany, will start the assembly in the first half of 2018. BAE Systems have begun the assembly of the front fuselage sections and the first is now ready to start the equipping phase, confirmed Mezzanatto.
Kuwait signed a contract for 28 Eurofighter jets in 2016, making it the eighth customer for the aircraft and third in the Gulf region alongside Saudi Arabia and Oman. On 10 December Qatar announced that it would procure 24 Eurofighter aircraft with associated technical support in a deal worth up to $8 billion.
Kuwait will also acquire Boeing-built F/A-18 aircraft from the US government, with the US State Department approving a $10 billion sale of 32 aircraft last year.