Eurofighter reaches 500th delivery milestone

The pan European Eurofighter Typhoon program has reached the 500 th aircraft delivery milestone, with the delivery of the latest Typhoon s...

The pan European Eurofighter Typhoon program has reached the 500 th aircraft delivery milestone, with the delivery of the latest Typhoon swing role fighter to Italian Air Force.

The Tranche 3 Block 25 aircraft was assembled by program partner Leonardo from its Turin site in Italy. The delivery brings Italian fleet to 65 Eurofighter jets, of the 92 aircraft ordered.

The first Eurofighter was delivered to the UK Royal Air Force at the end of 2003. The 100th Eurofighter was delivered to the UK Royal Air Force in September 2006.

The 200th aircraft was handed over to the German Air Force in November 2009. The 300th aircraft was delivered to the Spanish Air Force in October 2011, and the 400th to the German Air Force in December 2013.

The aircraft has been deployed on multiple occasions on Baltic Air Policing duties with the Spanish, German, Italian and UK air forces and has been combat proven during operations in Libya, Iraq and Syria.

Eurofighter has won orders for a total of 599 aircraft including export orders from Saudi Arabia, Oman, Austria and Kuwait.

Through a series of continual enhancement steps, new capabilities are being added to the aircraft, with test and integration activity currently underway for advanced beyond visual range air-to-air missile Meteor, the precision guided cruise missile Storm Shadow and the precision attack missile Brimstone.

The multinational collaboration involves BAE Systems, Airbus Group and Leonardo(formerly Alenia Aermacchi).