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BAE Systems begins assembly of first Eurofighter Typhoon jet for Türkiye to complement F-16 fleet.
BAE Systems began assembling the forward fuselage for Türkiye’s first Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jet at its Samlesbury facility in Lancashire on November 5, 2026, as Airbus Defence and Space initiated center fuselage manufacturing in Germany. The milestone marks the physical production phase for 20 new-build Tranche 4+ fighters ordered under a £5.4 billion contract to bolster the Turkish Air Force alongside its F-16 fleet. Deliveries will take place between 2030 and 2032 following final assembly at Warton, while Ankara pursues additional Typhoons from Qatar and Oman and evaluates a potential second batch of 24 new-build aircraft.
Current Eurofighter Typhoon production covers 38 Tranche 4 Quadrigas for Germany, 20 Tranche 4 Halcons for Spain, and three remaining aircraft for Kuwait, while recent contracts add 25 Halcon 2s for Spain, 20 Tranche 5s for Germany, 24 fighters for Italy, and 20 for Türkiye. (Picture source: Eurofighter)
On November 5, 2026, BAE Systems began assembling the forward fuselage of Türkiye's first Eurofighter Typhoon at Samlesbury, Lancashire, while Airbus Defence and Space manufactured its center fuselage in Germany, marking a new production milestone for the 20 fighters ordered by Ankara on October 27, 2025. The £5.4 billion contract covers aircraft, mission equipment and weapons, within a wider program valued at up to £8 billion, including training and support. Final assembly will take place at Warton, with six deliveries scheduled for 2030, eight for 2031 and six for 2032. Turkish pilots have already begun training in the United Kingdom, while Ankara is negotiating the acquisition of additional Typhoons from Qatar and Oman to obtain operational aircraft before the British deliveries begin, and is now considering another purchase of 24 new-build Typhoons.
The Eurofighter is intended to reinforce a Turkish Air Force operating approximately 240 F-16s and 20 remaining F-4Es, while the Özgür F-16 modernization program and development of the indigenous Kaan fighter continue. The first Turkish Typhoon is being manufactured through Eurofighter's multinational production network, with BAE Systems responsible for the forward fuselage at Samlesbury, Airbus for the center fuselage in Germany, and Warton for final assembly, systems integration, and flight testing. Manufacturing began during the first half of 2026, and Turkish Air Force representatives inspected progress at Samlesbury during the first week of November.
The production sequence includes joining the fuselage sections, installing the two EJ200 turbofan engines, integrating the radar, avionics, defensive aids and weapons interfaces, and completing ground and flight acceptance trials. The delivery schedule allocates 30% of the order to 2030, 40% to 2031 and 30% to 2032, averaging 6.7 aircraft annually. Assuming a 12-aircraft operational squadron, the first six fighters would equip half a squadron, while the cumulative 14 aircraft scheduled by the end of 2031 would provide enough airframes for one squadron and two additional aircraft for training or maintenance rotation. If Türkiye adopts 16-aircraft squadrons, the first two annual batches would still fall two aircraft short of equipping a complete unit, and the final six deliveries in 2032 would bring the inventory to 20.
No date has yet been established for the first Turkish Typhoon's rollout or maiden flight, and the November milestone does not indicate that a complete aircraft has entered final assembly. The October 27, 2025 agreement, finalized by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Keir Starmer, assigns £5.4 billion to 20 aircraft, mission equipment and munitions, equivalent to £270 million per fighter when the entire contract is divided equally, or £400 million when allocating the wider £8 billion program ceiling. Neither figure represents the standalone aircraft price because both include additional equipment or services. Türkiye's fighters are expected in Tranche 4+ configuration with Leonardo's ECRS Mk 0 Captor-E AESA radar, rather than the ECRS Mk 2 planned for 40 British Typhoons from 2030.
What capabilities will Türkiye's new Eurofighter Typhoons bring?
The Mk 0 combines electronic beam steering with a mechanically repositionable antenna, extending radar coverage beyond the field of regard of fixed AESA arrays and allowing target tracking across wider angles during aircraft maneuvers. The weapons package also includes Meteor beyond-visual-range missiles, whose throttleable ducted-rocket propulsion maintains thrust beyond initial acceleration, improving terminal energy against maneuvering targets compared with conventional boost-coast missiles under comparable conditions. Brimstone precision air-to-ground missiles are also associated with the acquisition, adding a weapon designed for attacks against armored vehicles and other point targets, while subsequent Tranche 5 and Long Term Evolution radar, electronic warfare and computing upgrades remain separate modernization possibilities.
The Eurofighter Typhoon itself is a twin-engine canard-delta fighter measuring 15.96 m long, with a wingspan of 10.95 m, a wing area of approximately 50 m², an empty weight of 11 tonnes and a maximum takeoff weight of 23.5 tonnes. Its two Eurojet EJ200 afterburning turbofan engines each generate 60 kN dry thrust and 90 kN with afterburner, producing a combined maximum thrust of 180 kN and a static thrust-to-weight ratio of 1.02. The fighter reaches Mach 2 at altitude, operates above 16,700 m and supports maneuvering loads up to +9 g, with 13 external store stations and a capacity of approximately 7.5 tonnes of external carriage. Its ECRS Mk 0 AESA radar provides multiple-target tracking and an extended field of regard, while PIRATE supplies passive infrared detection and the Praetorian suite combines radar warning, electronic countermeasures, missile approach warning and expendable countermeasures.
The Typhoon can employ Meteor missiles with active radar guidance and a range exceeding 100 km, alongside AMRAAM, IRIS-T and ASRAAM compatibility across different configurations. Air-to-ground options include Brimstone, Paveway guided bombs and Storm Shadow on compatible aircraft standards, although Türkiye has not contracted every weapon integrated on the fighter, which has a combat range of 1,000 to 1,400 km depending on mission configuration. Türkiye and the United Kingdom separately signed a £2.5 billion to £2.6 billion training and support agreement on March 25, 2026, covering spare parts, repairs, ground equipment, simulators, electronic warfare support and three years of technical assistance after entry into service. The British Royal Air Force (RAF) will train 10 Turkish instructor pilots and approximately 100 maintenance instructors specializing in propulsion, avionics, weapons and mission systems, with the objective of establishing personnel capable of training subsequent Turkish crews.
Turkish pilots, for their part, began instruction in August 2026 and progressed to flight conversion with RAF No. 29 Squadron at Coningsby, while maintenance specialists inspected the base's facilities between September 15 and 17. At an illustrative two pilots per aircraft, a 12-fighter squadron requires 24 pilots and a 16-fighter squadron 32, excluding instructors and reserves. Assuming 200 flying hours annually per aircraft, 20 Typhoons would consequently generate 4,000 hours, increasing to 8,800 for 44 aircraft and 11,200 for 56. These insight figures translate directly into requirements for additional pilots, engine maintenance, spare parts, simulator capacity and qualified technicians, logically making personnel generation and sustainment capacity as important as aircraft delivery dates. Ankara's parallel secondhand acquisition negotiations are intended to provide Typhoons before the first British-built deliveries in 2030.
How additional Turkish orders could affect Eurofighter production through the 2030s
The original objective of 44 Typhoons combined 20 new-build fighters with possibly 12 aircraft from Qatar and 12 from Oman. However, Qatar operates 24 relatively recent Typhoons equipped with AESA radar and Meteor compatibility, meaning a 12-aircraft transfer would remove 50% of its fleet, while Oman operates 12 Typhoons whose complete transfer would eliminate its inventory of the type. On October 22, 2026, Türkiye confirmed continuing negotiations with Qatar following August and September discussions covering aircraft, munitions, pilot training, maintenance personnel and logistical support. Qatari aircraft would offer greater commonality with Türkiye's planned ECRS Mk 0 configuration, while Omani fighters could require refurbishment and NATO-compatible communications, identification and datalink modifications. A February 2026 expansion scenario raised the prospective inventory from 44 to 56 fighters, an increase of 27.3%, although the additional 12 aircraft and their suppliers remain unresolved.
An unidentified European country also proposed transferring Typhoons already occupying production positions, potentially allowing delivery of new aircraft before 2030, but no supplying country, quantity, or agreement has been confirmed. A separate expansion possibility emerged on November 4, 2026, when Eurofighter Chief Engineering and Operations Officer Cristiano Montrucchio included a prospective second Turkish batch of 24 new-build fighters among future sales opportunities at the International Fighter Conference in Munich. This would increase Türkiye's new-build acquisition from 20 to 44 aircraft, a 120% increase, or produce a theoretical 68-aircraft fleet if combined with 24 secondhand Typhoons. By September 30, 2026, the consortium had accumulated 769 orders and delivered 619 aircraft, leaving a difference of 150, with deliveries representing 80.5% of cumulative orders.
Current production commitments include Germany's 38 Quadriga fighters, Spain's 20 Halcon aircraft and three remaining Kuwaiti Typhoons, totaling 61, alongside 89 recently ordered aircraft comprising Spain's 25 Halcon 2 fighters, Germany's 20 Tranche 5 aircraft, Italy's 24 and Türkiye's 20. Additional prospective orders include 54 Saudi, 36 Austrian and 24 Turkish fighters, totaling 114, plus approximately 150 other possible sales. With approximately 100,000 personnel across the four partner countries, Eurofighter production schedules extend into the 2030s, including Spanish Halcon 2 deliveries through 2035 and German Tranche 5 deliveries through 2034. Accelerating Turkish deliveries would therefore require additional manufacturing capacity or reassignment of existing production positions, while a second Turkish order would add further aircraft to an already committed industrial schedule.
How Typhoons could strengthen Türkiye's air superiority capabilities
For the Turkish Air Force, the Typhoon would introduce an AESA-equipped fighter with Meteor missiles alongside an F-16 fleet whose principal air-to-air armament relies on AIM-120 AMRAAM variants. The Meteor's sustained propulsion can preserve greater terminal energy during extended-range engagements, while the ECRS Mk 0's repositionable antenna allows wider-angle radar tracking during maneuvers, and PIRATE adds passive infrared detection without transmitting radar energy. These characteristics support long-range interception, combat air patrol and defensive counter-air missions, although effective engagement distances depend on target altitude, speed, maneuvering, electronic warfare and midcourse guidance quality.
A 44-aircraft Typhoon inventory would equal 18.3% of Türkiye's current 240-aircraft F-16 fleet, increasing to 23.3% with 56 Typhoons or 28.3% with 68, providing enough aircraft to establish multiple fighter squadrons while F-16s undergo Özgür modernization. Typhoon units could also concentrate on air superiority and interception, leaving F-16s available for precision strike and suppression of enemy air defenses. Türkiye could also examine manned-unmanned cooperation involving the Bayraktar TB3, Kizilelma and ANKA-3, building on Turkish TB3 and Eurofighter participation in NATO's Steadfast Dart 2026 exercise in February. Future experimentation could assess sensor-data exchange, coordinated reconnaissance and cooperative missions between Typhoons and Turkish drones, although direct integration would require additional software, communications and flight testing.
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Written by Jérôme Brahy
Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, South Korea, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.