Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH signed a weapon system integration contract with NETMA, the NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency, t...
Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH signed a weapon system integration contract with NETMA, the NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency, to facilitate and secure integration of MBDA’s Meteor Beyond Visual Range Missile system.
The contract was signed at the Paris Air Show 2013 in Le Bourget by Jesus Pinillos Prieto, General Manager of NETMA and Alberto Gutierrez, Chief Executive Officer of Eurofighter GmbH. It was witnessed by high-level defence representatives from all the four core nations of Eurofighter: Philip Dunne, Minister for Defence Equipment Support&Technology in the United Kingdom; Stéphane Beemelmans, Secretary of State for Defence in Germany; Roberta Pinotti, Under Secretary of State for Defence in Italy, and Pedro Argüelles SalaverrÃa, Secretary of State for Defence in Spain.
The signing is further evidence of delivery around a range of capability enhancements for the Eurofighter Typhoon, and secures work on a programme to integrate the state of the art ramjet missile system through the partner nations in Eurofighter for the foreseeable future.
The Meteor missile system, integrated with the current class-leading M-Scan radar (and in the future the advanced E-Scan radar) fitted to the Eurofighter, and utilising the full potential of two-way data-link communication, will greatly increase the ‘no-escape-zone’ around the aircraft enhancing both its effectiveness and lethality.
In December 2012, BAE Systems, one of the four Eurofighter Partner Companies within Eurofighter, completed a test-firing of a Meteor missile from a Eurofighter Typhoon, Instrumented Production Aircraft 1 (IPA1) off the coast of Wales. Further design and test work on the missile system will continue as part of the integration programme as BAE Systems, Cassidian, Alenia Aermacchi embed the system within the programme in the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Meteor is an active radar guided beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) being developed by MBDA. Meteor will offer a multi-shot capability against long range manoeuvring targets in a heavy electronic countermeasures (ECM) environment.
