Eurofighter Typhoon IPA1

IPA1 is the first of the Eurofighter Typhoon programme's Instrumented Production Aircraft: airframes built to full Tranche 1 production standard and fitted with telemetry, sensors and recorders to carry weapon-system development beyond what the seven Development Aircraft (DA) had covered. Unlike the DAs, the IPAs flew in configurations very close to those of frontline aircraft, so the clearances obtained with them carried straight across to the fleets of the four partner nations. The IPAs are owned by the NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency (NETMA) and each was assigned to one nation and one main task: IPA1, assigned to the United Kingdom, was given the Defensive Aids Sub-System (DASS).

The aircraft was assembled at the BAE Systems plant at Warton under the consortium's industrial work-share: Alenia delivered the rear fuselage of the first production aircraft on 4 September 2000 and announced shortly afterwards that it had also completed the left wing, and final assembly of IPA1 began at Warton on 4 November 2000. That same year the British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon sat in the cockpit of IPA1 during a visit to the programme. On 1 June 2001 the first series-production Eurojet EJ200 engine was delivered for installation in IPA1, making this airframe the first Typhoon to receive the certified production powerplant.

IPA1, carrying the British military serial ZJ699, took off from Warton for the first time on 15 April 2002, with Eurofighter project pilot Keith Hartley in the front seat and Chief Test Pilot Paul Hopkins in the rear; the flight lasted 26 minutes. It was the third IPA to fly, after the Italian IPA2 (5 April 2002, Caselle) and the German IPA3 (8 April 2002, Manching), and some sources therefore describe it as the first series-built Typhoon from BAE Systems. With the first three IPAs airborne, the programme aimed to complete certification and flight testing ahead of the first customer deliveries planned for later that year.

IPA1's career suffered an early halt: after the loss of the Spanish DA6 in November 2002 following a simultaneous failure of both engines, the six remaining development aircraft and the first three IPAs were grounded until the initial findings of the inquiry were released.

IPA1's primary task was integration of the DASS, the Typhoon's defensive aids suite comprising radar warning receivers and countermeasure dispensers. Alongside that work the aircraft supported envelope expansion and carefree-handling testing, the trials that allow the pilot to manoeuvre to the limits without monitoring the aircraft's parameters. Over time it was fitted with an in-flight refuelling probe, additional test instrumentation and a dedicated paint scheme.

IPA1 was the platform chosen for the first fit-and-form trials of the Meteor beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile: in October 2003 Eurofighter GmbH announced the start of Meteor integration into the Typhoon weapon system after that first phase had been completed at Warton with a representative missile carried on IPA1, with flight trials planned for 2005.

From the end of February 2006 the aircraft concentrated on clearances for the Paveway II laser-guided bomb: flutter and vibration testing with the store, envelope expansion and jettison trials. The first release of a Paveway II from IPA1 took place on 29 June 2006. In June 2009 it carried out release trials with the Paveway IV. From early 2011 it performed releases of Meteor prototypes over the Aberporth range in Wales, and at the end of 2012 came the first test firings of the missile from the aircraft.

All the IPAs were built to Tranche 1 standard; the avionics of most were later brought up to Tranche 2 standard, but IPA1 and IPA3 retained their Tranche 1 fit. In Royal Air Force accounting IPA1 appears, together with IPA5 and IPA6, among the development aircraft counted within the Tranche 1 deliveries, and it is regarded as the first Typhoon T1, the British two-seat trainer version, although it remains part of the BAE Systems test fleet rather than serving with an operational unit.