EUROJET Turbo GmbH has signed a contract with the NATO Eurofighter & Tornado Management Agency (NETMA) to deliver 59 new EJ200 engines to the Spanish Air Force.
The engines will power the Eurofighter Typhoon fighter aircraft as part of the second phase of Spain’s Halcón acquisition project.
The EJ200 engine, produced by a consortium of Rolls-Royce, MTU Aero Engines, ITP Aero, and Avio Aero, has long been known for its exceptional performance since the first delivery in 2003.
With over 1,400 engines delivered to nine nations and more than 1.5 million engine flying hours, the EJ200 has proven itself as a reliable and high-performance powerplant for modern air forces.
The engines will be assembled at the ITP Aero facility in Ajalvir, Spain, with deliveries scheduled to begin in 2029. The contract was signed at Getafe Air Force Base in Madrid by NETMA’s Air Vice Marshal Simon Ellard (ret.), EUROJET CEO Ralf Breiling, and Rolls-Royce Director Chris Davie.
Chris Davie of Rolls-Royce commented: “At Rolls-Royce, we are proud to contribute to the EUROJET consortium with the EJ200, representing outstanding and innovative capabilities that ensure our allies maintain their operational edge. This new contract reflects the confidence placed in our technology and reinforces our commitment to innovation, partnership, and supporting operational readiness for modern air forces.”
Ralf Breiling added: “The confidence that Spain and the core nations continue to show in the EJ200 engine and the Eurofighter platform is inspiring. The EJ200 provides a world-class, combat-proven asset for the Spanish Air Force, continuing the deep partnership between European industry and government.”
AVM Simon Ellard (ret.) concluded: “The signing of today’s contract finalises a successful collaborative procurement effort to provide 59 engines for Spain. The EJ200 is a key asset that powers the Eurofighter Typhoon, reinforcing NATO’s deterrence capabilities and securing our skies.”
Mean while what is the UK ordering or buying? nothing but hoping by 2027/30 every thing is all in order and working as if by magic.
U.K..is waiting the strategic defence cuts (review) , in a few years Britain will be a minor country in defence, only waiting for the sale/mothball of 1 of the Carriers to finish the scrap.
We will be ordering more F35B’s. And our Typhoons will be upgraded to the most capable standard of any Typhoon operator.
Now this gives a very interesting figure 1.5 million engine flying hour
If you look at the RAF it generally burners around 20,000 operational typhoon flying hours per year ( it was in an FOI). As a typhoon has 2 engines that’s 40,000 engine hours a year, so between 2010 and 2020 it probably burned something like 400,000 engine flight hours and 200,000 airframe hours.. and if we project to 2025 600,000 engine flight hours..making the RAF typhoons very heavy used compared to other nations fleets..the RAF has about a quarter of the total airframes but it looks like it’s burning well over a third of the engine hours.
This is a bit of a problem as a typhoon has an airframe life of 6000 flying hours.. so essentially the RAF burns the equivalent of almost 4 airframes a year.
Could this be a problem
Well the total tranche one order was 57.. but 20 of these were not front line aircraft so only about 37 were front line, after it’s first decade in 2019 each of the front line tranche ones had flown on averages around 2550 hours each or about 95,000 flight hours..as the RAF would have probably flown around 200,000 front line flying hours in that decade that leaves around 100,000 hours spreed across the tranche 2 and 3 fleet.
So estimated hours on the tranche 2/4 fleet for one decade 100,000 hours..let’s make a big assumption assume the RAF has kept up burning tranche one hours with its ever reducing active tranche 1 fleet and for the next five years ( 2020-2025) take half the 100,000 flying hours on the tranche 1 fleet, that would give the tranche 2/3 fleet 150,000 airframe hours burnt up until the retirement of the tranche ones.
So we will then burn 200,000 hours in 2025-2035 for a total of 350,000 airframe hours..
After disposal of the tranche 1s the RAF will have 56 single seat tranche 2 and 40 single seat tranche 3 for 96 front line typhoons or 590,000 airframe flying hours.
Lets skip to 2040 and the most optimistic timeframe for the RAF to have it’s first front line tempest squadron, it will have burnt 450,000 airframe hours
So by 2040 the RAF will have about 140,000 airframe hours left in the typhoon fleet..or about five years worth of hours…
considering it takes the RAF about 1.5 to 2 years to stand up each new fast jest squadron the last typhoon squadron will not be stood down until 2050
And in
2040 5 typhoon squadrons burning 16,500 hours
2041 5 typhoon squadrons burning 16,500 hours
2042 4 typhoon squadrons burning 13,000 hours
2043 4 typhoon squadrons burning 13:000 hours
2044 3 typhoon squadrons burning 10,000 hours
20045 2 typhoons squadrons burning 6500 hours
2046 2 typhoon squadrons burning 6500 hours
2047 1 typhoon squadrons Burning 3300 hours
2048 1 typhoon squadron burning 3300 hours
For around 90,000 typhoon hours burnt durning the time tempest gradually takes over and typhoon is phased out…
This means if you look at average usage of 20,000 typhoon flight hours a year ( and sometimes it goes up to 22500 for a 10% increase) the typhoon fleet will be retired with around 50,000 airframe hours left..so if tempest gets delayed by even 2.5 years the RAF will run out of airframe hours on its typhoon fleet.
Personally if I was Russia I would spend my entire time throwing ever increasing T-95 incursions at the Uk, if they eat up the typhoon flying times by an extra 3000-4000hours a year to 23,000- 24,000 for the next 15 years they could collapse the number of typhoon airframe hours to the point the RAF cannot keep its typhoon squadrons running in 2040.
Which is a great idea but the T-95 is held together with Gaffertape-ski and they are maxing what they can get out of them ATM and playing a very dangerous edge game between losses and pretending to have a capability.
Personally I wouldn’t bother with military I’d just bodge modify some civilian airlines to carry some dummy missiles and paint it in RuAF colours. Pollen is they can’t do that either as they have no spares.
Let’s be honest the Russians don’t really give two hoots about safety of their aircrews…but even without that HMG had better hope delivery of tempest is right on the button, if it is delayed they will need to make an emergency purchase of F35s. Running your primary air defence fleet down to 50,000 hours airframe hour time is not a clever thing to do.
Luckily. Experts are managing the Typhoon fleet. And are not using gestimating maths.
Yes well the hours are the hours and if they run out of them no amount of expert knowledge will make a blind bit of difference..the RAF burn 20,000 to 22500 airframe hours a year, for its operational needs, each typhoon has 6000 hours of life…those two numbers define when the fleet runs out of airframe hours and no expert can change that..unless they simply don’t fly as much with all the impact that will have on readiness, capability and deterrent…all the experts in the world could not prevent the RNs frigate fleet from a catastrophic failure in numbers when HMG decided not to bother ordering any frigates and all the experts in the world will not be able to maintain the typhoon fleet if it runs out of hours because tempest is delayed. If you choose to not mitigate the risk then you accept the consequences of that risk being realised..just as the RN now has to do with its frigate fleet.
Good evening. This is a very detailed and interesting analysis – especially considering that on the average day the RAF has only 30 combat ready Typhoons, none of which have the ECRS Mk2 radar the Spanish are getting until the end of the decade
They’re not getting mk2
They aren’t getting ECRS MK2. And RAF Typhoons aren’t just sat around waiting for the next battle of Britain. You repeat this line constantly David. And you couldn’t be further away from Typhoon availability figures or how the fleet is managed or how they operate.
The U.K. needs to get more F35B into service. Just now the problem is the nuclear and other items are eating up the budget. Most of the navy is being replaced. Lots of the helicopters of all forces are needing replaced.
The army needs new stuff.
That is what you get for taking investment holidays to balance the books short term.
Yep you either pay out the nose to mitigate all the risks that developed from the short term saving or you accept the consequences of the risk..like ending up with 6 knackered frigates only 5 of which are ASW frigates, which is where the RN will be in 2 years.