Hensoldt and Indra Begin Live Testing of the Eurofighter's ECRS Mk1 Step 1 Radar

The Mk1 Step 1 sets are fully fitted hardware running the most advanced software build to date, tested against live targets of opportunity and cooperative targets — the stage at which a radar stops being a laboratory article and becomes a weapon system. Hensoldt and Indra, the German and Spanish radar houses building the Mk1 under Airbus as prime, reported the first results positive and airborne trials to follow in 2026, on the path to delivering ECRS Mk1 to the German and Spanish air forces in 2027.

The increment matters because the Eurofighter's radar ladder is how the type stays relevant against fifth-generation threats. Mk0 is the Leonardo UK baseline on export jets; Mk1 Step 0 equips the German Quadriga and Spanish Halcón aircraft; Step 1 adds the electronic-attack and wideband capability the active-array antenna was always meant to deliver.

The proprietary read. This is the unglamorous core of keeping a fourth-generation-plus fighter credible — the radar, not the airframe, is where the Eurofighter's combat future is decided, and Germany and Spain are funding the sensor that lets it fight into the 2040s alongside the sixth-generation programmes now being argued over. While the headlines chase FCAS and Team Gen 6, the capability that actually flies this decade is a radar upgrade entering live trials. Tracked in Signal No. 76.