Experimental Aircraft Programme (EAP) 1985

Photographs from British Aerospace, Warton when on Sunday 27th October 1985, the EAP (Experimental Aircraft Programme) demonstrator was towed from its final assembly onto a weighbridge in No. 3 Hangar, Warton

The British Aerospace EAP was a British technology demonstrator aircraft developed as a private venture in the 1980s and which eventually formed the basis for the Eurofighter Typhoon

As can be seen, the airframe, is in the main, structurally complete. Whilst on the weighbridge, the aircraft was filled with fuel. Calibration checks were carried out to prove the software of the fuel management control system and to confirm the centre of gravity calibrations.

It was an unstable aircraft from first flight which made it more agile, there were no rods connecting the control sticks to the flight control systems and the wings were made out of carbon fibre. Today, these things are all common place but back then this was the cutting edge, it had never been done before.

Dave Ward, A member of the BAE Systems Flight Test Operations team involved in the programme, said the team involved in the EAP were building “an aircraft for the future.”