EADS Defence & Security celebrates delivery of 300th right Eurofighter wing

• 300th right wing will be inte­grat­ed in a Eurofight­er for the Ger­man Air Force
• Deliv­ery planned from Getafe to Manching/Germany for final assembly

A cer­e­mo­ny was held this Fri­day at EADS Defence & Security’s facil­i­ties in Getafe to cel­e­brate the deliv­ery of the 300th right Eurofight­er wing, in which the work­force on the assem­bly line played a cru­cial part. This wing will be inte­grat­ed in the twin-seat Eurofight­er 021 des­tined for the Ger­man Air Force, which will be assem­bled at EADS Defence & Security’s facil­i­ties in Manch­ing, Germany. 

Enrique Bar­ri­en­tos, CEO Defence & Secu­ri­ty Spain, com­ment­ed: “The Eurofight­er con­tin­ues being the most impor­tant pro­gramme for the devel­op­ment of the tech­no­log­i­cal capa­bil­i­ties of the Span­ish avi­a­tion indus­try, and today we are cel­e­brat­ing a new mile­stone with the deliv­ery of the 300th wing, which was pro­duced on sched­ule using lat­est technologies.” 

The Eurofighter’s wing is a mul­ti-spar con­struc­tion with inte­gral fuel tanks. It has inboard and out­board flap­er­ons along its entire length, slats on its lead­ing edge, and the advanced Defen­sive Aids Sub­sys­tem (DASS) at its tip. The main land­ing gear attach­ment struc­ture is locat­ed on both wings. The skins and spars are made of car­bon-fibre com­pos­ite (CFC) mate­ri­als, with the spars co-bond­ed to the low­er skins. The ribs are made of car­bon fibre, alu­mini­um and tita­ni­um. Tita­ni­um is also used for the wing-fuse­lage con­nec­tions and out­board flap­er­ons. The wings are assem­bled at EADS Defence & Security’s facil­i­ties in Getafe using an inno­v­a­tive con­cept. Ten suc­ces­sive steps have been designed and put in place for wing assem­bly in order to reach the pro­duc­tion rate need­ed to ful­fil the Eurofight­er contract. 

The Getafe facil­i­ties also house the final assem­bly line for all Span­ish Air Force Eurofight­ers, pro­duc­tion of which began in sum­mer 2001. The Eurofight­er pro­gramme has cre­at­ed 22,000 direct and indi­rect jobs for high­ly qual­i­fied employ­ees in Spain. 

Mil­i­tary Air Sys­tems (MAS) is an inte­grat­ed activ­i­ty of EADS Defence & Secu­ri­ty (DS). DS is a sys­tems solu­tions provider for armed forces and civ­il secu­ri­ty world­wide. Its port­fo­lio ranges from sen­sors and secure net­works through mis­siles to air­craft and UAVs as well as glob­al secu­ri­ty, ser­vice and sup­port solu­tions. In 2009, DS – with around 21,000 employ­ees – achieved rev­enues of € 5.4 bil­lion. EADS is a glob­al leader in aero­space, defence and relat­ed ser­vices. In 2009, EADS gen­er­at­ed rev­enues of € 42.8 bil­lion and employed a work­force of about 119,000.

Con­tact: Fran­cis­co-Javier Sali­do-Colo­dron Media Rela­tions EADS Defence & Secu­ri­ty Spain