On January 21, those near Braunschweig Airport in Germany may have witnessed the takeoff of a different Airbus A320.
The aircraft, registered D-ATRA, is old (28 years old) and has flown for several airlines under other registrations, but since June 2006 it has belonged to the DLR (German acronym for German Aerospace Center).
The DLR A320 has a longer and more pointed nose and the explanation is that it is an aircraft for avionics testing.
On its maiden flight with the new nose, D-ATRA carried the new AESA-MK1 (Active Electronically Scanned Array) radar that will be installed on the Eurofighter Typhoon.
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The adaptation work was carried out by Airbus in Manching and it is up to DLR and the German Armed Forces to test it in flight.
“We are operating the aircraft in close collaboration with the DLR and the German Armed Forces to test a new radar for the Eurofighter and bring it to maturity,” said Airbus E-Scan radar project manager Thomas Hirsch.
Speeding up development
To ensure that the new nose does not compromise the safety of the A320 ATRA, as it is also called, Airbus has designed a new front section and reinforced the aircraft’s fuselage.
The work doesn’t stop there. The teams will also install new equipment in the jet’s cabin, including a custom Eurofighter avionics test rig and supporting cooling and power infrastructure requirements.
Airbus has answered the inevitable question of why the new radar is not tested directly on a Eurofighter. “The A320 ATRA has a significantly shorter clearance process and can stay in the air longer than a Eurofighter,” Hirsch explained.
In short, developing the AESA radar on the A320 is faster than on the fighter itself. This type of strategy is used by other manufacturers around the world, just remember a Boeing 757 that served as a testbed for the F-22 Raptor radar in the past.
The new AESA-MK1 radar will then be integrated into the latest generation of the Spanish “Halcón I” and German “Quadriga” Eurofighters and will improve the fighter’s capabilities in air-to-air and air-to-ground operations, as well as electronic warfare.
