Aircraft

Eurofighter CEO Ays Rauen has announced the formation of a new team to implement development activities.

“In the past, enhanced capabilities tended to be undertaken in large and unwieldy packages that were difficult to implement,” says Rauen, “but now we will take more incremental steps.”

The ‘development transformation’ team was formed as a result of the ‘project foundation’ study, and will be led by former chief operating officer programmes, Brian Phillipson. He told Flight Daily News that, under the new approach, capability could be added more quickly and more responsively.

He pointed to the UK’s CP193  programme, which saw Litening designator pods quickly integrated on the Typhoon to give an early precision attack capability, as an example of how equipment could be integrated quickly and cheaply, given the right culture and processes, and “if you are willing to change the way you work”.

Phillipson revealed that the second phase of capability enhancements planned for Tranche 2 Typhoons – a ‘big bang’ step change known as P2E – would now disappear to be replaced by an incremental programme, with many smaller steps.