A modified Avro RJ100 will help integration of Leonardo UK’s ECRS Mk2 AESA radar for RAF Typhoons, lowering prices and accelerating growth.
BAE Methods and QinetiQ are making ready to switch an Avro RJ100 regional jet right into a devoted flight-test platform for the mixing of the European Widespread Radar System Mk2 (ECRS Mk2). The radar is presently below growth by Leonardo UK for the Royal Air Pressure’s Eurofighter Hurricane fleet.
The data was first reported by FlightGlobal, which highlighted that joint work on the QinetiQ-owned plane, registered G-ETPL and designated because the Airborne Know-how Demonstrator (ATD), has been ongoing for a number of years. The plane first appeared in 2023 with a particular “fight plane nostril system”, designed to accommodate next-generation radar and sensor methods.
Supporting Hurricane’s Subsequent-Era Radar
In response to BAE Methods, efforts in 2025 have centered on defining the modifications essential to help ECRS Mk2 trials. These included airworthiness assessments, structural and avionics design adjustments, and integration of the radar interface, as talked about by FlightGlobal’s report.
“Having accomplished our evaluation, we anticipate to start work on the modifications required to the plane within the coming months and guarantee it is able to help our scheduled work on ECRS Mk2,” mentioned Paul Smith, Hurricane Technique Supply Director at BAE Methods Air.
The ECRS Mk2, developed by Leonardo UK, is a new-generation lively electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. Past conventional search and focusing on features, it’s designed to supply wideband digital assault, high-resolution artificial aperture radar (SAR) imaging, and automated goal recognition.
The radar kinds a part of the Hurricane’s Section 4 Enhancement (P4E) program, a broader improve package deal supposed to increase the plane’s operational relevance properly into the longer term. It’s the most superior variant of the ECRS radar, with the others being the Mk0 and Mk1, and it’ll solely equip RAF Typhoons.
Complementing Hurricane Flight Exams
The ATD will complement Hurricane flight-test belongings by permitting a good portion of labor to be performed away from frontline fighters. BAE Methods estimates that greater than 50% of present radar flight-test actions might be shifted to the RJ100 platform, enabling longer endurance missions, earlier analysis of radar modes, and decrease general price.
Smith defined: “We consider it could obtain earlier and longer flight assessments, speed up functionality faster and extra cheaply, and reveal progress on ECRS Mk2’s distinctive options.”
By transferring a considerable quantity of testing to the RJ100, business companions can free Typhoons presently used for testing functions whereas guaranteeing a extra environment friendly take a look at marketing campaign. BAE Warton, for example, operates a variety of Typhoons for testing, together with airframe ZK355 – the primary Tranche 3 RAF Hurricane, which was used each for the primary flight of the ECRS Mk2 and the testing of the MBDA SPEAR 3 air-to-surface weapon.
Progress on ECRS Mk2
In response to Leonardo, the primary ECRS Mk2 prototype was delivered to BAE Methods in April 2023, marking a key program milestone. Following integration and ground-based testing at Warton, preliminary flight trials had been accomplished in September 2024 utilizing a Hurricane take a look at plane. These sorties confirmed the radar’s baseline performance forward of extra in depth assessments.
The ECRS Mk2 is scheduled to be put in on 40 Tranche 3 RAF Typhoons starting in 2028, with service entry anticipated earlier than the tip of the last decade. Leonardo UK has already secured funding for long-lead parts and is anticipating a contract for full-rate manufacturing later in 2025.
The Airborne Know-how Demonstrator
Particulars of the ATD’s configuration had been launched by QinetiQ – who operates the jet, which described it as a contemporary airborne laboratory designed to interchange ageing flying testbeds within the UK’s protection analysis fleet. Based mostly on the Avro RJ100 quadjet, the plane incorporates a fashionable flight-test instrumentation system, 5 modular cabin racks for mission gear, and workstations for real-time monitoring.
Essentially the most notable modification is the fight plane nostril system, which permits set up of next-generation radars and superior sensor payloads. This flexibility is predicted to make the ATD a long-term enabler for a number of Hurricane-related upgrades, together with future iterations of Leonardo’s Praetorian defensive aids subsystem.
As talked about earlier, the fight plane nostril system was first unveiled in 2023. The radome seems to resemble that of a Hurricane, additional hinting on the applications which will likely be supported by the ATD.
Strategic Significance
As famous by BAE Methods, the ECRS Mk2 program will improve Hurricane’s means to conduct air dominance and suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) missions, whereas securing a whole lot of jobs throughout the UK’s protection aerospace sector. These capabilities can provide the Hurricane and its pilots an unmatched multi-range detection and survivability in extremely contested battle areas earlier than peer adversaries, based on the data launched.
“The ATD will enable each the UK and its European companions to mature and iterate Hurricane’s avionics to use broader capabilities which ECRS Mk2 brings,” Smith defined.
Each BAE Methods and Leonardo UK are additionally central to the International Fight Air Programme (GCAP), the place classes discovered from the ECRS Mk2 are anticipated to feed instantly into sixth-generation fighter growth. It ought to be famous that there’s already a take a look at plane for GCAP and the broader UK Future Fight Air System (FCAS) program, the Boeing 757 ‘Excalibur’ testbed.
