BAE awarded £135m Typhoon contract

BAE Systems will spearhead the next development phase of the Typhoon aircraft after being awarded a new contract worth in the region of £135m.

The contract was awarded by Eurofighter, the consortium which represents UK, Spain, Italy and Germany and their industrial partners Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo.

The programme will see work undertaken to improve weapons capability, increasing the variety of precision guided munitions, and further enhance Typhoon’s defensive systems and datalinks, improving high-speed secure sharing of data.  

Current development work on Typhoon includes the design and exploitation of new large touchscreen cockpit displays, funded by BAE Systems, enabling pilots to assess and respond to increasing volumes of data from the aircraft's sensors and datalinks.

Richard Hamilton, Typhoon programme director, Europe – BAE Systems Air, said: "This contract marks another significant milestone in the continued development of Typhoon’s capability as we apply our breadth of expertise to further advance its combat air capability, ensuring it has the technologies required for the future battlespace.

"The contract will sustain 100 highly-skilled engineering roles in the North West and is just one example of a number of technology-led innovations being developed on Typhoon, which will help to keep the UK skill base at the forefront of the global combat air sector and sustainable skills required to deliver the next generation future combat air system."

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