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Copyright Eurofighter
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Eurofighter Partner Company Alenia Aermacchi has began series of flight tests to integrate the MBDA Storm Shadow bunker buster cruise missile on to Eurofighter Typhoon multi-role fighter.
The flight trials began on 27 November, by the Alenia Aermacchi Flight Test Centre at Decimomannu Air Base, in Sardinia, Italy, with the support of the Eurofighter Partner Companies, BAE Systems and Cassidian.
The intensive flight test programme began with flutter tests and an air data system large store interference assessment, using Instrumented Production Aircraft 2 (IPA2) updated to the Phase 1 Enhancement standard.
The Storm Shadow, already in service with the Italian Air Force and British Royal Air Force Tornado fighter jets, is a conventionally armed, stealthy, long-range stand-off precision weapon designed to neutralise high value targets. The new weapons systems will add the capability to strike in day or night in all-weather conditions, well-defended infrastructure targets such as port facilities, control centres, bunkers, missile sites, airfields and bridges that would otherwise require several aircraft and missions.
This is a new addition to the Eurofighter Typhoon’s potent simultaneous multi-/swing-role capabilities.
Powered by a turbo-jet engine, with a range in excess of 250 km, the Storm Shadow missile weighs approximately 1300kg and is just over 5 metres long. It will be available to operators from 2015 when the Eurofighter Typhoon Phase 2 Enhancements become operational.
Eurofighter Typhoon is one of the most advanced new generation multi-role/swing-role combat aircraft currently available on the world market. Seven customers (Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Austria, Saudi Arabia and Oman) have 719 aircrafts under contract and 571 on order.
