On 06 and 07 June 2023, the Permanent Forum Meeting of The Eurofighter Typhoon Interoperability Project (ETIP) was hosted by the German Air Force at Laage Air Base in Rostock in northern Germany.
Subject Matter Experts from all EAG Air Forces operating the Eurofighter Typhoon (Germany, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom) met to identify, discuss, and share best practices and explore areas of mutual cooperation and interoperability on Air Operations and Maintenance.
Discussions and national presentations included each nation´s operational Lesson Learnt/Lesson Identified (LL/LI), fleet updates, plans and current issues. Other specific topics were discussed in syndicates by the appropriate experts in order to address in-depth relevant issues related to Air Ops, Flight Safety (safety issues and statistics) and Maintenance (AGE Compatibility Matrix review, expansion and way forward).
Of particular interest were the presentations and discussions of the recent cooperation on NATO Air Policing deployments, specifically from an Ops and Log perspective. Real-life Ops has prompted the next iteration of ETIP SOPs and the proposal of common live-ground training activities.
During the meeting, the participating nations were very active and found the EAG permanent ETIP forum very beneficial. Through initiatives like this, nations know they can further improve strategies and capabilities to address common operational interoperability challenges. The participating nations are looking forward to meeting again and Italy will host the next ETIP permanent forum meeting by the end of 2023.
