ABSTRACT
The European Fighter Aircraft (EFA) is a military aircraft project which is being developed by a European multinational consortium. Three of the four partners within this project have also been involved in the development and manufacture of the TORNADO aircraft in the 1970’s.
In recent times even more stringent reliability requirements have been placed on nearly all military projects. This implies that the procuring authorities, i.e. the Customer, have recognized the necessity to treat reliability engineering as seriously as other engineering activities. The EFA programme is no exception. Together with Maintainability and Flight Safety, Reliability has equal priority with Performance and Timescales.
The following outlines the methods used which will achieve the high in-service reliability of the aircraft as contractually required by the Customer. The general management structure of the project is described. As within the EFA programme a high responsibility rests with Suppliers and their Reliability programme, emphasis is placed on the description of Supplier requirements, especially with respect to Reliability testing.
