Eurofighter Typhoon ISPA1

ISPA1 (Instrumented Series Production Aircraft 1) was the first of five instrumented series-production aircraft that the Eurofighter programme added to its test fleet to evaluate avionics modifications. Unlike the IPA (Instrumented Production Aircraft), which were development aircraft owned by the consortium, the ISPAs were diverted from the production lines, carried less telemetry equipment and could later be restored to series standard. On these aircraft the gun bay was used to house avionics connected to the fibre-optic bus. Legally the ISPAs were the property of the user nations and were only loaned to industry for the duration of the trials.

ISPA1 was the British Tranche 1 two-seater BT005, Royal Air Force serial ZJ804, built by BAE Systems at Warton. It made its first flight on 11 May 2004 and was assigned to the Combined Industry/Customer Test Team (later known as the Typhoon Combined Test Team), made up of BAE Systems and RAF personnel. Its main tasks were trials of the DASS defensive aids subsystem, the Striker helmet and the integration of the Laser Designator Pod (LDP).

On 3 February 2005 ZJ804 left Warton for Lajes, in the Azores, as the first leg of a deployment to Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, California, as part of Exercise High Rider. It was crewed by a BAE Systems test pilot and a pilot from the Typhoon Operational Evaluation Unit (OEU). The aircraft crossed the Atlantic with the support of RAF VC10 and TriStar tankers and then made an unaccompanied transit across the United States from Bangor, Maine, to China Lake, refuelling at Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, and Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico. Harrier GR7 and Tornado GR4 aircraft from RAF Coningsby also took part in the exercise. The Typhoon began flying again immediately after arrival, carrying out trials to evaluate its weapon system in an operational environment, and returned to the United Kingdom once the exercise had ended.

Over the following years ISPA1 served as the test bed for the British Typhoon's air-to-ground capability. On 12 November 2007 BAE Systems announced that the Typhoon Combined Test Team had successfully completed the first mission to drop a laser-guided bomb, scoring a direct hit at the Aberporth range in Wales. The aircraft was BT005 (ZJ804), flown by Flight Lieutenant Dave Bowlzer of 17 Squadron with BAE Systems test pilot Paul Stone; it was the first fully laser-guided weapon release from a Typhoon, using the Litening III designator pod and an Enhanced Paveway II bomb.

On 3 March 2008, at BAE Systems' Warton site, ISPA1 concluded the integration work on the laser designator pod for the so-called "Austere" capability, the interim air-to-ground configuration intended for the Royal Air Force's Tranche 1 aircraft. That same year the programme's test fleet — six IPAs plus ISPA1, the DA development aircraft having been retired — passed 6000 accumulated flying hours in November 2008.

In June 2009 the aircraft was restored to series standard and handed over to the Royal Air Force, ending its career as a trials aircraft. Its place in the test fleet was taken by ISPA5, another British aircraft, this time from Tranche 2.