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.
Yes but numbers Robert. Numbers count and we will have the most capable aircraft but pitifully few of them. It’s high time and interim additional batch of 36 aircraft were ordered to bridge the gap between tranche 1 retiring and Tempest coming online
The UK Ministry of Defence must prioritise the procurement of an additional 36 Typhoon aircraft. With the Qatar order nearing completion, the Warton facility faces a looming production gap until the Tempest program transitions into the manufacturing phase. This gap poses a substantial risk of redundancies at BAE Systems, which cannot sustain its highly skilled workforce without ongoing aircraft assembly, testing, and flight operations for the next decade. While Warton has other projects, those won’t encompass the specialised skills critical for advanced military aircraft production. The UK possesses a unique capability in this area, and the loss of such expertise… Read more »
We don’t know when Tempest is coming online. F35 production is more vital to Tempest than Typhoon. And the recent orders from Italy and Spain will keep Warton busy. It’s all and good banging on about numbers when we all know the budget is available for more Typhoons. And if money was available, the RAF would rather have more F35s.
Neither of those orders help Warton as final assembly for those deals will be in Italy and Spain. Salmsbury benefits from major unit production though.
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
We kept Tornado flying for 40 odd years, with 20 odd years of constant deployed operations. Its why we have a sustainment fleet, to spread the hours around the fleet. And Typhoon is designed to be worked very hard. Airframe fatigue is not an issue like it was on earlier 4th gen fast jets. Tornados had G restrictions from the early 90s, and still lasted 40 years. The fly by wire doesn’t allow the jet to be over stressed even when pulling sustained 9G. The mean time between failure is very impressive on Typhoon. And jets on operations can even… Read more »
Sorry Robert but you have a couple of things that are incorrect, The first is the airframe life of the typhoon vs the tornado, the tornado had higher 33% longer airframe life over the typhoon not a shorter one. The tornado had a 8000 hour life. The typhoon is 6000, and it struggled like help to get to that, at one point they had dropped the airframe life to 1500, they did undertake a project to see if they could increase the life about 15 years ago they could not. The typhoon has a hell of a lot more performance… Read more »
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.
@Robert Blay Britain’s last Typhoon order – of tranche 3 – was placed in 2009 and no new aircraft have been ordered since. The last jet produced at Warton for the RAF was delivered in 2019. I would support a further domestic order for another Typhoon squadron of 24 as necessary to retain the skills to build and fly GCAP. The figure of only 30 combat ready Typhoons is widely quoted elsewhere. Our Typhoons won’t get the new radar until 2030 at the earliest. What seems to be happening is that Typhoons are being retired from active service – to… Read more »
@David Lloyd. We don’t need to buy more Typhoons to retain skills to build Tempest. We have those skills, and the technical experience of building 5th F35 will be of far more benefit to Tempest. Most T3 jets are less than 10 years old. So they will last for another 30 odd years. And F35B isn’t replacing Typhoon, we are just buying more F35’s. T1 Typhoons have king been planned foe retirement from 2025. With £2.35Billion being spent on upgrading the T2/3 fleet. And the upgrade isn’t just about ECRS MK2. Its defensive aids, weapon systems PIRATE, wide area display,… Read more »
What we do to produce the rear empenage of F35 is worlds apart in the skill and knowledge to produce and fly a Typhoon from Warton. When that gap comes and the staff retire or redeploy, the skills are gone.