The new Special Colour Scheme for Eurofighter IPA7 celebrates 60 years of Airbus’ Manching site.
On Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022, one of the Eurofighter Instrumented Production Aircraft made its first flight in a new colourful scheme. A test pilot took off with IPA7 (registration 98+07) at lunch time, displaying the new design celebrating 60 years of Airbus at the site in Manching.
The aircraft is still used to carry out various test, development and enhancement programs.
The new special folio design in white and blue depicts the Bavarian flag on the left wing upper side while, on the right wing upper side, it features a large “60 Years” title.
The underside of the fuselage shows a large badge repeating the anniversary and the fuselage sides are dominated by large “Airbus Manching” titles.
On the tail the most important aircraft types of past and future for the site are displayed next to a large “60”, showing the shapes of Starfighter, Tornado, Eurofighter, A400M, Eurodrone along with the FCAS (Future Combat Aircraft System).
For Airbus, Manching is one of the main locations for military aviation with regard to design, development, production and maintenance of manned and unmanned aircraft. The airfield, equipped with two runways (although operations focus nearly entirely on the southern runway), is used next to Airbus by the Wehrtechnische Dienstelle 61 (Bundeswehr Technical and Airworthiness Center for Aircraft) and a small civil used terminal (read here a report on aviation-media.com giving an overview on the operators).
