Eurofighter Typhoon Tranche 4

Tranche 4 is the fourth production batch of the Eurofighter Typhoon and the first designed from the outset around an active electronically scanned array radar. It grew out of Germany's need to retire its Tranche 1 Eurofighters, aircraft configured almost exclusively for air superiority and with very limited air-to-ground capability, whose upgrade to later standards would have been disproportionately expensive. Berlin launched Project Quadriga in 2019 with that aim, and the Bundestag approved the purchase on 5 November 2020: 38 fighters for 5.4 billion euro, with the contract signed with Airbus on 11 November of the same year. Sources disagree on the internal split of the order: the German and Italian encyclopedic accounts and part of the specialist press describe 31 single-seaters and seven two-seaters, while the programme timeline and the later coverage of the maiden flight give 30 single-seaters and eight two-seaters; the total of 38 is consistent throughout. Of those 38 airframes, 34 are destined for operational service and four are retained as "instrumented" aircraft for the continuous development of the weapon system alongside industry, in parallel with a national Eurofighter test and evaluation centre where the Luftwaffe, the Bundeswehr procurement and certification agencies and the manufacturers work together.

The essential difference from Tranche 2 and Tranche 3 lies in the avionics. Tranche 4 carries as standard an AESA radar of the Captor-E family, rebranded in 2020 under the European Common Radar System programme: the German and Spanish aircraft receive the ECRS Mk 1, developed by Hensoldt as design authority together with Spain's Indra under contract to Airbus Defence and Space. The Mk 1 builds on the ECRS Mk 0 export baseline — the standard flying on Kuwaiti and Qatari Typhoons — and adds a new multi-channel digital receiver and wideband transmit/receive modules that open the way to electronic warfare and electronic attack functions, together with a wider field of regard, improved target recognition and greater detection range. With it, the fighter can track nearby targets while still sweeping hundreds of kilometres of airspace for further threats. The programme also foresees retrofitting the Mk 1 to 110 Luftwaffe Eurofighters already in service, 79 from Tranche 2 and 31 from Tranche 3. The rest of the Tranche 4 package comprises a redesigned mission management system, modernised cockpit displays with greater data fusion and the integration of next-generation weapons; in the German case this included an order placed with the Bundeswehr's federal equipment office for GBU-54 Laser JDAM guidance kits. German aircraft, by contrast, forgo the PIRATE infrared search and track sensor, omitted on budgetary grounds.

Spain became the second customer for the standard. The Halcón programme, approved by the Spanish cabinet in December 2021, took shape in June 2022 with an order for 20 Tranche 4 Eurofighters — 16 single-seaters and four two-seaters — intended to replace the EF-18s of Ala 46 at Gando air base in the Canary Islands, with deliveries expected from 2026 and final assembly at Getafe. A second batch, Halcón II, was announced in September 2023 and signed on 20 December 2024 for a further 25 aircraft; its exact standard is disputed between sources, described either as Tranche 4+ or outright as Tranche 5 configuration. Flight testing of the radar began in Spain before Germany: on 29 November 2024 the instrumented aircraft IPA9, registration C.16-70, took off from Getafe with an ECRS Mk 0 prepared for later growth towards the production standard.

The first series aircraft appeared in 2026. On 1 June 2026 Airbus rolled out at Getafe the first Halcón I Eurofighter for the Spanish Air and Space Force, off the assembly line and awaiting its first engine run and maiden flight. In Germany, Airbus displayed at its Manching plant, during the Airbus Defense Summit, a single-seater carrying production number GS0115 and the military registration 34+03, at a point when no German Tranche 4 had yet flown. The maiden flight followed shortly afterwards, in July 2026, with airframe 34+02 flown by Airbus test pilot Stefan Auer on a Production Flight Acceptance Test lasting a little more than an hour. Deliveries of the German batch are to be completed by 2030, and Manching has 58 Eurofighters in production, comprising the 38 Tranche 4 jets and the 20 Tranche 5 aircraft contracted in October 2025 — a batch that, given delays to the Long Term Evolution programme, will be based technically on Tranche 4 itself. Airbus puts the expected service life of these airframes at "well beyond 2060". The standard also made headway on the export market: Italy ordered 24 aircraft on 23 December 2024 and Turkey, after the German veto was lifted, signed on 27 October 2025 for 20 newly built aircraft from the United Kingdom for some 8 billion pounds.