Eurofighter Typhoon DA2

DA2 was the second of the seven Development Aircraft (DAs) of the Eurofighter 2000 programme and the first of the two built by British Aerospace at Warton, near Preston in Lancashire. It carried the British military serial ZH588 and was completed as a single-seat airframe. Although it was finished and ready to fly before its German sibling, the programme's maiden flight went to DA1 at Manching on 27 March 1994; DA2 had been rolled out at Warton on 14 August of the previous year in a two-tone grey scheme and ran its engines for the first time on 30 August.

Its first flight came on 6 April 1994 in the hands of Chris Yeo, BAe's director of air operations. The 50-minute sortie over the Irish Sea, escorted by a Tornado and a Hawk, kept to a gentle 287 mph at 10,000 ft. Because the definitive EJ200 engine was not yet cleared to fly, DA2 was fitted with interim Turbo-Union RB199 Mk 104E turbofans taken from the retired BAe EAP demonstrator (ZF534). A test life of 575 sorties was planned, with flight envelope expansion and carefree handling trials — in which the flight control system prevents the pilot from exceeding the aircraft's limits — as its main task.

On 4 May 1994 it was flown before UK ministers and industry officials at Warton, and on 24 May it completed its ninth flight with John Turner, having accumulated 7 hours 14 minutes, 327 knots at 7,924 m and manoeuvres up to 3.5 g. It was then grounded for a structural inspection and fitted with the first software upgrade for flight control and cockpit displays, replacing the initial Tornado-style analogue instruments. The second phase of development flying began on 17 May 1995 with a 1 hour 25 minute evening flight; during that phase the aircraft diverted to RAF Leeming in bad weather and flew to the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget in June 1995 for static display. On 15 June 1995, on its twentieth flight, it went supersonic for the first time, reaching Mach 1.05 with Chris Yeo. On 22 and 23 July 1995 it gave its first public flying demonstration at RIAT Fairford, and on 9 November 1995 Squadron Leader Simon Dyde became the first RAF pilot to fly it. By the end of 1995 it had logged 67 sorties, most of them with project pilot John Turner.

In September 1996 it displayed at Farnborough and was then withdrawn to prepare for the third phase of envelope trials: a spin recovery parachute and gantry were fitted as a safety measure for the carefree handling work, flown by Craig Penrice. In November 1997 it carried out ground refuelling trials with a TriStar tanker at RAF Brize Norton, and on 23 December 1997 it reached the design goal of Mach 2 over the Irish Sea, the first Eurofighter to do so. On 12 January 1998 it flew the programme's first air-to-air refuelling trials with a VC10 K3 tanker (ZA149). Later that year it was grounded to receive the definitive EJ200 engines, cockpit system upgrades and a Martin-Baker Mk 16A zero-zero ejection seat; it returned to flight in August 1998 and in September opened the Farnborough show in formation with the Red Arrows. By then it was flying in an all-black scheme, in which it was seen at RAF Leuchars.

In March 1999 it completed baseline-configuration flutter trials at Mach 1.2 and 750 knots equivalent airspeed, and in April, fitted with the new aircrew services package, it climbed to 50,000 ft to test the aircraft's high-altitude capability. In May 1999 it ran ground carriage trials with dummy stores intended for the Typhoon. In July 2000 it became the first development aircraft to fly with the 2b2 flight control software and, on 28 July 2000, began a series of survey flights for which its skin was covered with 490 pressure transducers; the black pads and wiring of those sensors are the reason for the gloss black paint that made it famous. That month it flew the first public formation of two Typhoons with DA1 at Farnborough. In 2001 it deployed to RAF Leuchars for airflow measurement trials, wearing the markings of No. 43 'Fighting Cocks' Squadron, and also carried out engine relight trials. In January 2002 it refuelled in flight simultaneously with DA4 from the same tanker; by 7 April 2002 it had made 419 flights totalling 374.7 hours. In July 2002 it took part at Farnborough in the first display of four Typhoons together, completed the carefree handling trials with a four-missile configuration that paved the way for Initial Operational Clearance, and moved on to Defensive Aids Sub-System (DASS) trials, including captive-carry flights with the ASRAAM missile. As late as 2006 it was still testing a towed decoy and a new helmet fully integrated into the avionics at Warton.

Its final flight, to RAF Coningsby, took place on 29 January 2007, closing a career of 652 sorties and 614 hours 44 minutes with 20 different pilots. After giving up its engines and other spares to the fleet, it was dismantled and moved by road to RAF Brize Norton for C-17 air portability trials in December 2007. In January 2008, lightened of engines, gearboxes and hydraulic pumps, it travelled to the RAF Museum at Hendon, where assembly was completed on 30 January 2008; it has hung there ever since in its black livery in the Milestones of Flight gallery.