First Series Production Eurofighters Take Shape; Prototype Will Fly To Greece For Public Demonstrations
Work has commenced on schedule and is now well under way on the major sub assemblies for the early production aircraft the first of 620 aircraft on order from the four nations. These sub assemblies are taking shape at the Eurofighter Partner Company facilities across Europe, representing a major step forward for the programme.
The first front fuselage cockpit half sections have been married-up at British Aerospace Samlesbury. Assembly of individual half sections began in January this year, and their coming together in the marry-up jig was a major milestone, with an unprecedented level of quality being achieved.
The front and aft sections of the first centre fuselage have been mated at DaimlerChrysler Military Aircraft, Augsburg. The front section of the centre fuselage was assembled in Augsburg, while the aft part was finished in Bremen and was delivered to Augsburg in June. Mating of the two sections is complete, and the centre fuselage is now in the process of being covered with its carbonfibre skin. Finally the centre fuselage will be delivered to Manching for equipment fitting early next year before the final assembly of IPA1 (the first of five Instrumented Production Aircraft) begins at British Aerospace at Warton next year.
The rear fuselage section is currently being assembled at BAe Samlesbury and is due to be shipped to Alenia in Turin in the next few weeks, for completion of the remaining structural stages and for fitting out with equipment.
The construction of the wings is also proceeding to schedule. The first production left hand wing has been successfully co-bonded at Alenia and the right hand wing at CASA using a new improved tooling process jointly developed by these two companies.
The co-bonding process consists of bonding all the integral wing spars to the previously cured lower wing skin. This highly advanced and complex operation reduces the requirement for fasteners through the wing fuel tank bottom skin thus reducing the overall mass of the aircraft and the potential for fuel leaks. These achievements represent another very significant milestone in the wing production programme.
In addition to this work on sub-assemblies, the ordering of equipment from sub-contractors is making good progress and over 400 orders have now been placed covering both Production Investment and actual series production
Construction of the final assembly lines at the four Eurofighter Partner Companies is also well under way, with substantial investment in facilities and technology. Final assembly of the five IPA is expected to start progressively from late summer 2000 as follows: IPA 1 - BAe Warton IPA 2 - Alenia Turin IPA 3 - Dasa Manching IPA 4 - CASA Getafe IPA 5 - BAe Warton
First Series Production Eurofighters Take Shape; Prototype Will Fly To Greece For Public Demonstrations
