Born in Turin, Built for Britain: The Story of the Eurofighter Typhoon

Ask a British schoolchild to draw a fighter jet and there is a fair chance you will get something with a pointed nose, a big delta wing and two little wings near the front. The Eurofighter Typhoon has been the shape of British air defence for more than twenty years.

It is the jet that roars off the runway at Coningsby or Lossiemouth when a Russian bomber strays too close, the one that booms over Essex when an aircraft stops answering the radio, and the star of every air show from Fairford to Southport.

It took a long time to get here. The Typhoon was born of Cold War planning in the 1970s and 1980s, survived the end of the Cold War that had justified it, a French walk-out, a German funding crisis and years of delays, and entered RAF service in 2003, more than four years later than first promised.

It has since flown in combat over Libya, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, shot down drones over the Middle East, policed NATO's eastern border and become Britain's most important export aircraft.

This is the story of the Typhoon: the Hawker fighter that gave it its name, the demonstrator that proved the design, the politics, the specifications, the RAF squadrons that fly it, its wars, its display jets and its future.

Every fact has been checked against at least two independent sources, among them the RAF's official Air Historical Branch history, National Audit Office reports, Hansard, the RAF Museum's aircraft records and the specialist press. Where respected sources disagree, we say so.

Hawker's Namesake: The First Typhoon

The name was not new. The Hawker Typhoon was designed as a successor to the Hurricane and powered by the enormous 24-cylinder Napier Sabre engine. When it entered service in 1941 it was, in the RAF Museum's words, the RAF's first 400 mph fighter.

By D-Day twenty-six squadrons were flying it, and it found its real fame not as an interceptor but as a ground-attack aircraft and tank destroyer, armed with four 20mm cannon and rockets, attacking German tanks and transport in Normandy.

MN235 at the RAF Museum is believed to be the only complete Hawker Typhoon left anywhere. It came home as a gift from the Smithsonian Institution in America.

Its modern namesake has flown alongside the Spitfires and Hurricanes of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight many times, and in 2024 one RAF display jet was painted as a D-Day Hawker Typhoon, of which more later.

From EAP to Eurofighter: Origins, 1972 to 1988

The modern Typhoon's family tree begins in 1972, when the RAF set out a requirement, known as Air Staff Target 403, for a new fighter. Several British designs came and went, including British Aerospace's twin-engined P110, and an Anglo-German-French project called the European Combat Aircraft collapsed in 1981 amid arguments over money, requirements and, in particular, who would lead.

In April 1982 Britain, West Germany and Italy launched the Agile Combat Aircraft instead, and when the German and Italian governments pulled out, British Aerospace, its partners and the Ministry of Defence carried on paying for a single demonstrator.

That demonstrator was the Experimental Aircraft Programme, or EAP, serial ZF534. It was built with a Tornado's rear fuselage and fin and one wing made in Italy, and it first flew from Warton on 8 August 1986, flown by British Aerospace's Dave Eagles, reaching Mach 1.1 on its first flight.

Over the next five years it flew 259 sorties, reached twice the speed of sound and proved the unstable, computer-controlled delta-canard layout that the Typhoon would use. After a spell as a teaching aid at Loughborough University it went on display at the RAF Museum at Cosford in 2013.

The RAF's official historians concluded that every pound the government spent on it "was later repaid many times over".

Meanwhile the air chiefs of Britain, France, West Germany, Italy and Spain had agreed in December 1983 to develop a European Fighter Aircraft together. France wanted to lead it, to base it on the Dassault design that became the Rafale, to take a larger share of the work and to add a naval version.

The Defence Secretary, Michael Heseltine, asked Margaret Thatcher to arrange for him to see President Mitterrand. "She tried," he wrote later, "but he refused to see me."

The decisive meeting took place in Turin on 1 August 1985 and ran into the early hours of 2 August. Britain, West Germany and Italy signed up to a fighter of about 9.75 tonnes with engines of around 90 kN of thrust; France did not, and went its own way with the Rafale. Spain signed on 12 September 1985.

The RAF's official history, written with the benefit of hindsight, judges that the project "probably benefited from France's departure", and that the French were left with a much bigger bill for the Rafale than they had expected.

The four nations formed Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH in Munich in June 1986, coining the name "Eurofighter" for the first time, and the Eurojet consortium to build its engine, with Rolls-Royce as Britain's partner. The main development contracts were signed in November 1988.

Crisis, Cuts and a New Name

No sooner had development begun than the Cold War ended, and a newly reunified Germany, facing enormous bills in the east, began looking for ways out. After a difficult year, the four defence ministers agreed on 10 December 1992 to relax some of the requirements, cut costs and rename the aircraft Eurofighter 2000.

Explaining the case in the Commons, the Defence Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, pointed out that "in the 1950s, the RAF had 12 different types of combat aircraft. We now have five."

The first prototype, DA1, flew from Manching in Bavaria on 27 March 1994, flown by Peter Weger. "I told myself 'Don't make a fool of yourself'," he said, "but the aircraft made it really easy." The first British prototype, DA2, serial ZH588, followed from Warton on 6 April 1994 with Chris Yeo at the controls, using engines that had first powered the EAP.

After only nine flights DA2 was grounded for almost a year to wait for new flight control software, a small taste of the delays to come. DA2 went on to fly 652 sorties and now hangs from the ceiling of the RAF Museum at Hendon.

The name Typhoon was adopted at a ceremony at Farnborough on 2 September 1998, initially for export. The same month the first production contract was signed, including 55 aircraft for the RAF.

The RAF had originally been expected to receive its first aircraft in December 1998; the date slipped again and again, and the first was actually delivered in June 2003.

Delta, Canards and Deliberate Instability: The Design

The Typhoon is a twin-engined delta with a pair of small foreplanes, or canards, just behind the cockpit. It is deliberately unstable, which makes it extremely agile but means that no human pilot could fly it unaided; a digital fly-by-wire system makes constant corrections many times a second.

The airframe makes extensive use of carbon-fibre composites, and Eurofighter states that only fifteen per cent of its surface is metal.

Its two Eurojet EJ200 engines each produce about 60 kN of thrust dry and 90 kN with reheat, enough to push the aircraft beyond the speed of sound without using reheat at all, a trick known as supercruise, and to get it off the ground in well under ten seconds. The photograph above shows what full reheat looks like from underneath, as a Typhoon banks hard over RAF Fairford in July 2016.

The pilot sits on a Martin-Baker Mk16A ejection seat and flies with hands on throttle and stick, with Direct Voice Input allowing some functions to be commanded by speaking, and a helmet that projects flight and targeting information onto the visor.

The Typhoon's sensors include the Captor radar and an infrared search and track system called PIRATE, which can detect other aircraft by their heat without giving its own position away, and a defensive aids suite with missile warners, chaff, flares and a towed decoy.

The RAF's new radar, the European Common Radar System Mk2 built by Leonardo in Edinburgh, first flew in a Typhoon at Warton on 27 September 2024 and can jam enemy systems as well as detect them.

There is one other piece of equipment worth mentioning, if only because it nearly was not there. In 1999 the Ministry of Defence decided to save money by not using the Typhoon's 27mm Mauser cannon, leaving it in the aircraft as ballast.

One MP, the former pilot Peter Viggers, told the Commons in October 2000 that "every single pilot below the rank of group captain to whom I have spoken" thought it "madness to scrap the gun". The decision was reversed in 2006.

Typhoon Specifications at a Glance

The figures below are for the RAF's Typhoon FGR4, from the RAF, Eurofighter and Airbus. Where sources disagree, the range is given.

Crew: one (the two-seat T3 is used for training).

Length: 15.96 m (52 ft 4 in).

Wingspan: 10.95 m (35 ft 11 in), or 11.09 m by the RAF's figure, which appears to include the wingtip pods.

Height: 5.28 m (17 ft 4 in).

Wing area: 50 m².

Maximum take-off weight: 23,000 to 23,500 kg, depending on the source.

Engines: two Eurojet EJ200 turbofans, each producing about 60 kN (13,500 lb) of thrust dry and 90 kN (20,000 lb) with reheat.

Maximum speed: Mach 2 at altitude according to Eurofighter, and Mach 1.25 at sea level. The RAF quotes Mach 1.6.

Service ceiling: about 55,000 ft.

g limits: +9 and -3.

Hardpoints: thirteen, five under the fuselage and four under each wing.

Gun: one Mauser BK-27 27mm cannon.

RAF weapons: Meteor, AMRAAM and ASRAAM air-to-air missiles; Paveway IV bombs, Brimstone missiles and Storm Shadow cruise missiles.

Tranches, Numbers and Costs

In the mid-1980s the Ministry of Defence expected to buy 232 Typhoons. In the end it bought 160, in three batches, or tranches: 53 Tranche 1 aircraft, 67 Tranche 2 and 40 Tranche 3. Twenty-four Tranche 2 aircraft built for the RAF were diverted to Saudi Arabia under its 2007 deal, and replaced in Tranche 3.

The 160th and last RAF Typhoon was delivered in September 2019.

The bill was large. The National Audit Office reported in 2011 that the UK was likely to spend £37 billion on the Typhoon over its life, that development costs had more than doubled to £6.7 billion, and that the cost of each aircraft had risen by 75 per cent, largely because of the inefficiencies of four-nation collaboration and the delays.

A government answer in 2010 put the full cost of flying a Typhoon at £70,000 an hour, twice that of the Tornado GR4; the Ministry of Defence has declined to publish the figure since 2022.

Originally designed as an air superiority fighter, the Typhoon had to learn to bomb. A modest upgrade gave the RAF's first aircraft laser-guided bombs by 2008, and the £425 million Project Centurion added the Meteor, Storm Shadow and Brimstone missiles so that the Typhoon could take over every task of the Tornado GR4, which retired in March 2019.

The photograph of a Tornado F3 alongside a Typhoon F2 in 2007 shows the old and the new together, twelve years before the handover was complete.

Into Service: Warton, Coningsby and the First Squadrons

The RAF's first Typhoon, a two-seat T1 serial ZJ803, was handed over at BAE Systems' Warton factory in Lancashire on 30 June 2003 to No. 17(R) Squadron, which had re-formed as the Typhoon Operational Evaluation Unit. On 9 February 2004 its commanding officer, Wing Commander David Chan, became the first RAF pilot to fly the Typhoon solo.

No. 29(R) Squadron followed as the Operational Conversion Unit, the school where every RAF Typhoon pilot learns to fly the jet, and both units moved to RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire in 2005.

The first front-line squadron was No. 3(F), which re-formed on the Typhoon on 31 March 2006, followed by No. XI(F) Squadron on 29 March 2007. The Typhoon then moved north.

No. 6 Squadron stood up at RAF Leuchars in Fife on 6 September 2010 and No. 1(F) Squadron in September 2012, and both later moved to RAF Lossiemouth in Moray. No. II(AC) Squadron converted from the Tornado in 2015 and No.

IX(B) Squadron followed in 2019, while No. 41 Test and Evaluation Squadron at Coningsby took over the job of developing new weapons and tactics.

The result is the shape of the Typhoon Force today: squadrons at Coningsby guarding the south of the country, and squadrons at Lossiemouth guarding the north. For the story of the service that flies them, see our history of the Royal Air Force.

Quick Reaction Alert: Guarding British Skies

Every hour of every day, armed Typhoons sit on Quick Reaction Alert at Coningsby and Lossiemouth, with pilots ready to be airborne within minutes. The Typhoon took over the southern QRA duty from the Tornado F3 on 29 June 2007, and the northern duty in March 2011, when the last Tornado F3s were retired and No. 111(F) Squadron disbanded.

A photograph of a Typhoon passing the radar station at Saxa Vord on Unst, the most northerly point of Britain, captures the kind of ground it covers.

The Ministry of Defence publishes how often the alert is launched, counted in days rather than individual sorties. In 2007, the Typhoon's first year on the job, QRA jets were launched against Russian military aircraft on nineteen separate days.

Recent years have been quieter, with QRA launched on six days in 2022, nine in 2023 and six in 2025, although the Ministry now declines to say how many of those involved Russian aircraft, on the grounds that deterrence is the whole point.

The visitors are usually Russian long-range bombers and maritime patrol aircraft probing the edges of British airspace. On 28 January 2015 two Tu-95 "Bear" bombers flew down the English Channel with their transponders switched off, and Typhoons were scrambled from both Lossiemouth and Coningsby; the Russian ambassador was summoned to explain.

On 15 January 2018 Lossiemouth's Typhoons met a pair of Tu-160 "Blackjack" bombers over the North Sea, and on 14 August 2023 they intercepted two Tu-142 "Bears" north of Shetland, supported as usual by a Voyager tanker.

Not every scramble involves the Russians. When a civil aircraft stops talking to air traffic control, the Typhoons go and find out why, and if time is short they are cleared to go supersonic over land. That is why, every so often, a large part of southern England hears a sonic boom.

On 22 June 2019 the Coningsby jets escorted a Jet2 holiday flight back to Stansted after trouble with a disruptive passenger, and the boom was heard across Essex. On 15 August 2025 they shepherded a private business jet that had lost contact with air traffic control into Stansted, rattling windows from Kent to Cambridgeshire.

Faith, Hope, Charity and Desperation: The Falklands

Four Typhoons have been permanently based at Mount Pleasant in the Falkland Islands with No. 1435 Flight since 2009, when they replaced the Tornado F3. Four aircraft, with an airborne spare, left Coningsby on 12 September 2009 for the long flight south, supported by a TriStar and two VC10 tankers.

The flight's aircraft carry the names Faith, Hope, Charity and Desperation, a tradition handed down from the Phantoms and Tornados before them and inspired by the three Gloster Sea Gladiators, Faith, Hope and Charity, that defended Malta in 1940.

The Falklands jets are the last of the RAF's first-generation Tranche 1 Typhoons. In September 2026 the Ministry of Defence confirmed that they will be replaced by four later Tranche 2 aircraft during the rotation planned for late 2027.

Libya, 2011: Baptism of Fire

The Typhoon went to war for the first time over Libya. After the United Nations authorised a no-fly zone to protect Libyan civilians from Colonel Gaddafi's forces, RAF Typhoons deployed to Gioia del Colle in southern Italy and flew their first combat mission, a no-fly zone patrol, on 21 March 2011.

The RAF then asked them to do something they had barely practised. The Ministry of Defence later told Parliament that the Typhoon squadrons had not flown air-to-ground training for more than a year, and that one group of pilots with no previous experience of dropping bombs from the Typhoon was declared combat-ready after a single week's training.

On the evening of 12 April 2011, flying with a Tornado GR4 south of Misrata, a Typhoon destroyed two Libyan main battle tanks with laser-guided Enhanced Paveway II bombs, the type's first weapons dropped in anger.

By the end of the campaign in September the Typhoons had flown more than 3,000 hours and released 234 weapons. The distances were considerable, as Wing Commander Patounas of No. 3(F) Squadron explained: every sortie, he said, was "the equivalent of launching from Oslo, flying to London, looking for a target, finding one and striking it.

Then flying to Paris to look for another target before flying to Luxembourg to do exactly the same and then flying back to Oslo to land."

Iraq and Syria: Operation Shader

In the campaign against the so-called Islamic State, the Typhoon became the RAF's principal strike aircraft. After Parliament voted to extend air strikes to Syria in December 2015, Typhoons from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus carried out their first Syrian strikes on 4 December against the Omar oilfield, alongside the Tornados that had flown the first mission the night before.

When the last Tornado came home from the operation in February 2019, the Typhoon took on the whole task alone.

Two Typhoon pilots won the Distinguished Flying Cross over Iraq and Syria. Flight Lieutenant Roger Cruickshank of No.

II(AC) Squadron led a Typhoon formation near Fallujah on 27 May 2016 that used Paveway IV bombs to save an Iraqi platoon pinned down by the enemy. "Definitely my best mission in the air force," he said later.

Flight Lieutenant Tom Hansford of No. 1(F) Squadron flew a nine-hour night mission through thunderstorms in which he destroyed four vehicle bombs, an attack that required 235 separate switch selections in the cockpit.

On 14 December 2021 a Typhoon shot down a small hostile drone over the coalition base at At Tanf in southern Syria with an ASRAAM missile. The Ministry of Defence described it as the first operational air-to-air engagement by an RAF Typhoon, eighteen years after the type entered service.

Yemen, Iran and the Gulf, 2024 to 2026

When Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel on the night of 13 to 14 April 2024, RAF Typhoons already in the region to fight the Islamic State were among the aircraft that intercepted them. The Prime Minister told the Commons that British forces had "destroyed a number of Iranian drones", without saying how many.

Between January and May 2024, and again in April 2025, Typhoons flying from Akrotiri with Voyager tankers struck Houthi targets in Yemen after the group's attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. The first raid, on 11 January 2024, involved four Typhoons and two Voyagers, with a fifth Typhoon standing by as a spare; the targets included drone and missile sites and airfields used to attack merchant ships.

In early 2026, as war broke out with Iran, RAF Typhoons were sent to protect Britain's Gulf allies. On 1 March 2026 a Typhoon of the joint UK and Qatari No. 12 Squadron shot down an Iranian drone approaching Qatar, and within days Typhoons had downed two more, one over Jordan and one heading for Bahrain.

The photograph above, taken on 31 May 2026, shows a Typhoon armed for air-to-air combat turning away from a Voyager tanker, carrying laser-guided rockets of the kind now used to bring down drones far more cheaply than a missile.

NATO's Eastern Flank and Beyond

Since Russia's seizure of Crimea in 2014, RAF Typhoons have taken their turn almost every year guarding the skies of NATO's eastern members. They flew from Šiauliai in Lithuania in 2014 and Ämari in Estonia in 2015, when four jets scrambled seventeen times and intercepted more than forty Russian aircraft.

In 2017 Britain became the first nation to send fighters to NATO's southern air policing mission in Romania, where a Typhoon was photographed alongside a Romanian MiG-21, and the RAF has returned there several times since.

In 2023 the RAF and the German Luftwaffe flew the first joint Typhoon scramble from Estonia, intercepting a Russian Il-78 tanker on 14 March, and the detachment had intercepted fifty Russian aircraft by the time it came home.

In 2025 six Typhoons deployed to Malbork in Poland, working alongside Polish F-16s and Swedish Gripens, and in September that year, after Russian drones strayed into Polish airspace, Typhoons flew from Coningsby on NATO's new Eastern Sentry mission.

The Typhoon Force also trains a very long way from home. The photograph above shows a No. XI(F) Squadron Typhoon at sunset in Darwin, Australia, before the squadron's first sortie on Exercise Pitch Black in July 2024, one of the largest air combat exercises in the Indo-Pacific.

No. 12 Squadron: Britain and Qatar

Qatar's order for twenty-four Typhoons brought with it an unusual arrangement. On 24 July 2018, at a ceremony at Horse Guards attended by the Amir of Qatar, No. 12 Squadron stood up as a joint RAF and Qatar Emiri Air Force Typhoon squadron, which the Ministry of Defence described as the RAF's first joint squadron since the Second World War.

Qatari personnel trained alongside RAF crews at Coningsby, and during the 2022 football World Cup eight Typhoons and around 160 personnel deployed to Qatar to help protect the tournament. In 2026 the squadron found itself back in Qatar, and at war.

Display Jets: GINA, Blackjack and Moggy

For many people the Typhoon is best known from the air show crowd line, where the RAF Typhoon Display Team, drawn from No. 29 Squadron, shows off what the jet can do. The team has made a habit of painting its display aircraft in special schemes.

In 2015, for the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Battle of Britain, ZK349 "GINA" wore the markings of the No. 249 Squadron Hurricane in which Flight Lieutenant James Nicolson won the Victoria Cross in 1940.

From 2021 to 2023 the display jet was ZJ914, "Blackjack", painted matt black with enormous Union Flags, the aircraft in the photograph at the top of this article. "I am extremely proud to be literally flying the flag in this aircraft," said its first display pilot, Flight Lieutenant James Sainty.

In 2024, for the eightieth anniversary of D-Day, ZJ913 "Moggy" appeared in black and white invasion stripes, representing Hawker Typhoon MN396 "FM-G" of Pilot Officer Denzil Jenkins of No. 257 Squadron, and flew over Portsmouth for the D-Day commemorations on 5 June 2024.

The Typhoon is also a fixture of royal occasions. Fifteen Typhoons flew over Buckingham Palace in the shape of the number seventy for the Platinum Jubilee on 2 June 2022, and Typhoons spelled out the King's cypher in the "CR" formation over Buckingham Palace of June 2023.

Typhoons often fly alongside the Spitfires and Hurricanes of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, which shares their home at Coningsby, as in the Spitfire and Typhoon synchro pair, the old Typhoon's descendants flying with the aircraft it once fought alongside.

A European Fighter Around the World

By the middle of 2026, according to figures published by Airbus, 769 Typhoons had been ordered by ten nations and 618 delivered, and the worldwide fleet had passed a million flying hours. Each of the four partner nations assembles its own aircraft, at Warton in Lancashire, Manching in Bavaria, Getafe near Madrid and Caselle near Turin, along with the export orders it leads.

Germany now has the largest Typhoon fleet of all. Having bought 143 aircraft in the first three tranches, it ordered 38 more under the Tranche 4 "Quadriga" contract in November 2020, and a further 20 in October 2025, to be delivered between 2031 and 2034.

The first Tranche 4 aircraft flew at Manching in July 2026. Germany is also converting fifteen Typhoons into an electronic warfare version to replace the Tornado ECR.

In August 2022 the Luftwaffe flew six Eurofighters from Germany to Singapore, some 12,800 kilometres, in under twenty-four hours. "We made it to Asia within 24 hours," said its chief, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz.

Italy received 95 Typhoons in the first three tranches, the last on 23 October 2020, and ordered up to 24 more in December 2024.

Italian Typhoons flew combat air patrols over Libya in 2011 and reconnaissance missions against the Islamic State from Kuwait, and Italy has taken more turns than any other nation at NATO's Baltic air policing mission. Spain, which calls the type the C.16, ordered twenty more in June 2022 under Project Halcón and twenty-five in December 2024 under Halcón II, and rolled out the first of them at Getafe on 1 June 2026.

It was also a Spanish Typhoon that, on 7 August 2018, accidentally fired a live AMRAAM missile over Estonia while on Baltic air policing. The missile was never found.

The export story began awkwardly. Austria chose the Eurofighter in 2002 and signed for eighteen in 2003, but in 2007 its new defence minister renegotiated the deal down to fifteen older Tranche 1 aircraft, six of them second-hand from Germany, and gave up the infrared search and track sensor and the self-protection pods to save money.

The result is an air force that cannot easily identify aircraft at night, and whose jets carry weights where the defensive pods should be. The purchase was dogged by corruption investigations, and in 2018 Airbus accepted an €81.25 million fine from German prosecutors over unexplained payments, although bribery was not established. Austria is now looking for a replacement.

The Gulf has been kinder to the Typhoon. Saudi Arabia ordered 72 in September 2007, all eventually assembled by BAE Systems in Britain, and has flown them in combat over Yemen since 2015.

A memorandum for 48 more was signed in 2018, although by September 2026 no contract had followed. Oman ordered twelve in 2012. Kuwait ordered 28 in an Italian-led deal in 2016 and became the first air force anywhere to fly the Typhoon with the new Captor-E radar, before any of the four nations that build the aircraft. Qatar ordered 24 in December 2017, a deal that produced the joint RAF squadron described above.

The most recent customer is Turkey. After Germany dropped its long-standing objection, Turkey signed for twenty new Typhoons on 27 October 2025, a deal worth up to £8 billion that the British government called the country's biggest export deal in a generation, with deliveries from 2030.

Turkey is also taking second-hand Typhoons from Qatar and Oman. The order came just in time for Warton, where final assembly had paused in July 2025 after the last Qatari aircraft was finished.

The Typhoon has lost plenty of competitions too, mostly to American aircraft. Japan chose the F-35 in 2011, India chose the Rafale in 2012, and Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland and Finland all chose the F-35 between 2016 and 2021.

Where the F-35 won, its stealth, growth potential and running costs usually decided it; India picked the Rafale as the cheapest qualified bid.

The Future: Radar, Upgrades and GCAP

The RAF's first-generation Tranche 1 Typhoons were retired in March 2025, apart from the four in the Falklands, which follow in 2027. That has left a smaller but more capable force: the Ministry of Defence spoke in July 2026 of "the UK's 107 Typhoons", all Tranche 2 and Tranche 3 aircraft, planned to serve until at least 2040.

Rather than buying more (a defence minister confirmed in July 2026 that "there is no plan to purchase additional Typhoon aircraft"), Britain is upgrading the ones it has. The Defence Investment Plan published in June 2026 set aside £5.4 billion for the Typhoon to keep it effective into the 2040s.

Forty Tranche 3 aircraft are to receive the new ECRS Mk2 radar before the end of the decade, and the wider fleet is getting new communications, avionics, cockpit improvements and helmet-mounted sights, so that the Typhoon can fight alongside the F-35B Lightning and, in time, its successor.

That successor is the Global Combat Air Programme, or GCAP, a sixth-generation fighter being developed by Britain, Italy and Japan, with a target in-service date of 2035. Until it arrives, and for some years afterwards, the Typhoon will remain the backbone of the RAF's fighter force.

Eurofighter itself believes that the newest aircraft coming off the production lines could still be flying well beyond 2060.

Why the Typhoon Matters

The Typhoon has had a rough ride from its critics over the years: too late, too expensive, designed for a war that ended before it flew. Some of that criticism was deserved, and the National Audit Office said much of it first.

But the aircraft that emerged from all those committee rooms turned out to be a genuinely great fighter, and for more than twenty years it has been the RAF's first line of defence, at home, in the Falklands, over the Baltic and in the Middle East.

It also carries a proud name. The Hawker Typhoon's pilots flew into the flak over Normandy in 1944, and the fact that a Typhoon painted in their D-Day stripes could fly over Portsmouth eighty years later says something about how the RAF remembers its past.

Our collection of Typhoon photo prints covers the type from its first years to the present day, including Typhoons flying with the Red Arrows, refuelling from a Voyager tanker and roaring down The Mall. Every photograph in this article is available as a print, along with the rest of our modern RAF aircraft prints.