The Eurofighter Consortium has delivered the third and fourth Eurofighter Typhoons to the air force of Kuwait, with the aircraft landing in country on March 29.
The ferry flight of the new Kuwaiti Eurofighters was made possible by Italian Air Force support, which provided air to air refueling with a KC-767A tanker from 14th Wing, Pratica di Mare.
The delivery is part of the framework of a wider order for a total of 28 aircraft that will be delivered to the Kuwait Air Force.
“I was very proud last month seeing Eurofighters to fly over Kuwait City during the national day celebration, such as today increasing as planned the fleet. The Eurofighter Typhoons we have developed and produced for the Kuwait Air Force are the most advanced in the whole of the European program. In cooperation with the Italian Air Force we are providing the Country with an impressive air defense capability and we built state-of-the-art infrastructures to support and maintain a fleet of 28 aircraft,” Guido Sibona, vice president of Leonardo’s Eurofighter program, said.
The Eurofighter Kuwait program is part of a wider and deeper collaboration between the Italian Air Force and the Kuwait Air Force, spanning over operations, pilots training and support. The Italian Air Force is ensuring the initial training of the engineers and technicians in Italy, who will later support the Typhoon fleet in country.
The Eurofighter program is managed by the Eurofighter GmbH consortium, a company based in Munich (Germany) owned by Leonardo, BAE Systems and Airbus Defense & Space for Germany and Spain. On the government side, the program is managed by the NATO Eurofighter & Tornado Management Agency (NETMA), which was set up to meet the procurement needs of the air forces from the four participating countries, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Spain.
While the program headlines have focused on the new customer Kuwait, Eurofighter vice president Kuwait & P3Eb Maurizio Fornaiolo, pointed out that it is not a pure export program. It is qualified and certified under the Eurofighter four-nation umbrella (Italy, Germany, the UK and Spain) because P3Eb (the formal name of the program) is a NETMA contract.
Fornaiolo says this new standard will form the baseline for the core nation program. “We have now established a weapons system capability and that is a key first step in the Eurofighter 10-year-plan. All future programs will use this as a baseline for introducing the new capabilities. Indeed, even as we were delivering the initial aircraft, we were also working to progress future clearances to update the weapons system capabilities for the customer. So, the show goes on.”
