EUROFIGHTER - Hightech-Kampfjet: So entsteht das Meisterwerk europäischer Ingenieurskunst |WELT Doku

Video from the channel WELT Doku about Eurofighter Typhoon, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 51:08. Language: German. Video type: Documentary.

A WELT documentary on the manufacturing, maintenance and operational use of the Eurofighter Typhoon in Germany. It visits the Manching plant (Bavaria), where the centre fuselage is fitted out, German aircraft undergo final assembly and major maintenance; the MTU Aero Engines facilities in Munich and Erding, which build and repair the EJ200 engine; and live-fire exercises with guided bombs and air-to-air missiles. It includes testimony from Airbus test pilot Stefan Leutner.

The programme splits production among four countries: the United Kingdom supplies the forward section, Italy and the United Kingdom the rear section, Italy and Spain one wing each, and Germany the centre fuselage, as it already did with the Tornado. According to the documentary, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy signed the programme agreement on 2 August 1985, and Spain joined a month later; the first prototype flew on 27 March with Peter Weger at the controls, and in 2003 the first series-production aircraft left Manching, Warton and Turin. The Luftwaffe put them into service in April 2004 with Jagdgeschwader 73 at Laage, and Tranche 2 arrived from October 2008 with almost 400 changes. Conceived as a fighter, the aircraft has gradually taken on ground-attack missions.

The narrator cites a top speed of Mach 2.35 (about 2,900 km/h), a wingspan of 10.95 m, a length of 15.96 m, an empty weight of 10,995 kg, 6,215 litres of fuel, a combat range of up to 1,300 km with auxiliary tanks, a ceiling of nearly 20,000 m and a price of around €130 million. Manching produces up to ten aircraft a year; the centre fuselage spends 45 working days on its assembly dock with 2,500 work steps, and each aircraft has around 30,000 hand-crimped, documented connections. Every German Eurofighter returns to Manching after 600 flight hours for a major overhaul. The aircraft is aerodynamically unstable and depends on a four-times-redundant flight control system that moves the canards. Each EJ200 burns around 75 kg of fuel per minute without afterburner. In the tests, two guided practice bombs dropped from 12 km hit the target or land within 2 m of it, and over northern Scotland missiles with a range of up to 80 km are fired at drones.