Typhoon Storm Shadow: British and Italian Eurofighter Typhoon combat aircraft are to be able to employ the MBDA Storm Shadow long-range cruise missile after a GBP150 million (USD256.8 million) contract to integrate the weapon was signed at the Farnborough International Airshow 2014. Speaking at the show, Philip Dunne, UK Minister for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology, said the contract is between the four Typhoon partner nations and the industrial consortium that builds the aircraft. I am able to confirm that the contract will be signed ... to integrate the Storm Shadow onto the Typhoon, he announced. This is another building block in the upgrade of the Typhoon so it can remain in service for the next couple of decades. The deal was signed on 17 July. Dunne said the project would allow Italy and the UK, which already use the Storm Shadow, to operate it from their Typhoons. Until the formal launch of this integration effort, the UK and Italian air forces had only been able to launch the 500 km range Storm Shadow from their Panavia Tornado aircraft. The Storm Shadow contract follows on from the announcement by the UK government earlier in the week that a four-nation development contract for the Typhoons E-Captor electronically scanned array radar was to be signed later this year. On 15 July, the UK followed this up with its own GBP72 million contract to carry out de-risking work on the radar. Dunne said the Storm Shadow contract and other Typhoon upgrades were designed to maintain the operational relevance of the aircraft. BAE Systems, Airbus and Finmeccanica had already begun initial self-funded work on the project ahead of the formal contract award, including test flights on an Italian-based Typhoon. IHS Janes understands Saudi Arabia had already begun to fund Storm Shadow integration work to allow their fleet of Typhoons to employ the weapon
Posted on: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 08:12:50 +0000
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