A contract to fully develop an advanced form of radar for the four nation-backed Eurofighter Typhoon jet should be signed before the end of the year, Eurofighter chief executive Alberto Gutierrez said on Tuesday, according to Reuters. The consortium of Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain, have funded the initial development of the advanced radar, called E-scan, but a new contract is needed to ready the product so it can start to be fitted onto the fighter jets. "We are extremely confident that this is going to be more or less before year end," Gutierrez said of the contract at a press conference at the Farnborough Airshow. Britain has already signalled its intention to back the project, awarding BAE Systems a 72 million pound ($123 million) contract to test and derisk the E-scan radar development for its fleet of Typhoons.
