EADS CASA Military Aircraft Starts Eurofighter Heat Test Campaign in Southern Spain
(Source: EADS Military Aircraft; issued July 7, 2005)
MUNICH / MADRID --- EADS CASA Military Aircraft has just started long-term tests under operational conditions on a Eurofighter at the Spanish Air Force base of Morón (near Seville).
Following the Cold Environmental Trials carried out last winter near the Arctic Circle in Sweden, the instrumented production aircraft IPA4 and the mobile telemetry station were transferred from the EADS Military Aircraft Spain site at Getafe near Madrid to Morón, where an equally ambitious test programme is to be conducted.
As Eurofighter gives the user air forces an integrated Network Enabled Capability (NEC), which is indispensable for future operations among several Air Forces, the Spanish Air Force will actively support the tests by locating its MIDS (Multiple Information Distribution System) ground station at Morón and flying one or two operational Eurofighters in joint missions with the IPA 4. Moreover EADS CASA Military Aircraft will place its MIDS station at Talavera Air Base (near Portugal) and operate it from there. These circumstances will create the necessary network to conduct most favourable Data Link tests.
Morón in the south of Spain provides optimum conditions for the successful execution of the campaign. These include among other things the unusually high temperatures this summer, which will provide the proof that Eurofighter meets all the operational requirements, also under such extreme environmental conditions.
Furthermore, the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean offers flight corridors that also allow low-level supersonic flights, another common requirement for most of the planned flight tests.
With regards to the heat trials, EADS Military Aircraft Spain is continuing the test programme begun in the summer of 2004 but in the new aircraft configuration in line with the Block 2B design, which comprises the FLIR (Forward Looking Infra Red) sensor and the DASS (Defensive Aids Subsystems) on-board electronic self-protection system. The tests are taking place at approx. 43°C.
Along with this test series in the scorching sun of Spain there are additional test steps to be gone through in connection with "carefree handling" characteristics, in other words features that lighten the pilot's workload, such as the new automatic Manoeuvre Limitation System. This prevents the pilot from exceeding the boundary values determined by the flight parameters. Further test items are aircraft handling in the transonic range and acquisition of data on the aircraft's aeroelastic behaviour at high speeds (up to 750 kt).
The test programme will be examined in the course of 41 flights and numerous ground tests. To make optimum use of the flight operations during the test campaign, EADS Military Aircraft Spain has also planned to carry out in-flight refuelling with support from a Spanish Air Force C-130 Hercules.
Upon successful completion of the programme, this ambitious number of flights will have made an important contribution to punctual type acceptance of Block 2B.
The campaign is set to last until September 2005. A core team of 25 has been entrusted with carrying out the tests. As in other comparable campaigns, EADS Military Aircraft Spain will be cooperating closely with the Eurofighter partners in Germany, Great Britain and Italy as well as with the flight test centres of these countries and the operational units that already fly the Eurofighter.
EADS Military Aircraft, which is an integrated part of the EADS Defence & Security Systems Division (DS), concentrates all the EADS capabilities in the areas of high-performance combat aircraft, unmanned mission air vehicles (MALE) and unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs), manned mission aircraft and training aircraft and the ground support equipment for these systems.
EADS Defence & Security Systems, with revenues of about EUR 5.4 billion in 2004 and roughly 24,000 employees across ten nations, forms the defence pole within EADS. It offers integrated systems solutions to the new challenges confronting armed forces and homeland security units. It is active in the areas of military aircraft, missile systems, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems with manned and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), battlefield management systems, defence electronics, sensors and avionics, and related services.
EADS is a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services. In 2004, EADS generated revenues of EUR 31.8 billion and employed a workforce of about 110,000.
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