Key Points and Summary – Bangladesh has signed a Letter of Intent with Italy’s Leonardo to explore acquiring new-build Tranche 4 Eurofighter Typhoons, a potential first Asian customer for the European jet and a timely boost for the program.
-Dhaka is reportedly considering 10–16 aircraft, including two twin-seat trainers, all likely assembled in Turin with the latest Captor-E AESA radar and P3Eb multirole upgrade package.
Eurofighter Typhoon. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
-The move marks a sharp turn from an expected deal for 20 Chinese J-10CE fighters and aligns with Bangladesh’s Goal 2030 modernization drive, offering a significant leap over its aging F-7 and MiG-29 fleets.
Leonardo Announces LOI for Sale of Eurofighter Typhoon to Bangladesh
On 9 December, the Bangladesh Air Force (BAF) signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with Italy’s Leonardo for what is being called the “potential acquisition of Eurofighter Typhoon fighter aircraft.”
According to press reports, the document was signed at the Air Force Headquarters in Dhaka in the presence of Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Hasan Mahmood Khan, the Ambassador from Italy to Bangladesh H.E. Antonio Alessandro, and other representatives from both the Bangladesh armed forces and Leonardo, the prime contractor for the Eurofighter partner nation Italy.
“The Letter of Intent represents a significant step in the modernization process,” said Air Chief Marshal Hasan Mahmood Khan, Chief of Air Staff of the Bangladesh Air Force.
A potential sale agreement for the Eurofighter to an Asian country would be a first for the four-nation consortium that designed and built the aircraft, and the second new export order in recent months.
Leonardo concluded the sale and would be an unanticipated boost to the program partners.
Until the announcement of this potential procurement and a previously announced deal for 20 aircraft to Turkey, the European fighter jet was facing an uncertain future due to a lack of funding and almost no new orders.
German Air Force Eurofighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Leonardo, which has held the lead role in this sale, also accounts for 21 per cent of the Eurofighter consortium.
The number of aircraft to be acquired by Bangladesh has not yet been specified.
Still, somewhere between 10 and 16 fighters, with at least two of them two-seat combat-capable trainers, are reportedly being discussed.
Tranche 4 for Bangladesh
Surprisingly, the aircraft to be delivered to Bangladesh are all likely to be new-build models.
This contrasts with the recent Eurofighter deal for the Turkish Air Force, which will see Ankara receive a mix of 20 brand-new Tranche 4 aircraft and 24 slightly used Tranche 3A jets from Oman and Qatar.
The first deliveries to Turkey will be older used jets and will begin in 2026, with newly manufactured models to follow in the second half of the delivery schedule.
All the Bangladesh aircraft will be new-build and are most likely to come off the final assembly line in Turin, Italy.
Representatives of the BAF had visited Turin earlier in 2025 to test-fly and evaluate the Eurofighter.
The Bangladesh evaluation team reportedly flew the ISPA 6 (Instrumented Series Production Aircraft) airframe, fitted with the Captor-E Active Electronically Scanning Array (AESA) radar and the Phase 3 Enhancements Package b (P3Eb) upgrade options.
A Chengdu J-10 fighter of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force.
The P3E program is part of a series of staged upgrades that includes the P3EA, P3Eb, P3Ec packages.
These improvements to the Eurofighter are aimed at converting the Typhoon from a primarily air-to-air superiority platform into a comprehensive multi-role combat aircraft with full-spectrum air-to-ground capability.
One of the current Eurofighter customers that has also elected to modernize its aircraft to the P3Eb configuration is Kuwait.
Modernization Plan
A few months back, the option the BAF was expected to select was an offer from Chengdu Aerospace Corporation (CAC) to purchase 20 J-10CE fighters, with an acquisition cost of US$2.2 billion, including weapons and spares.
The J-10CE was considered an optimal solution because the BAF already operates a previous-generation CAC product, the F-7BGI, a Chinese reverse-engineered copy of the Russian Mikoyan MiG-21.
The J-10CE was also rated for both air-superiority and air interdiction missions. This would have given the BAF a multirole platform with capabilities that neither the F-7 models nor their earlier Russian MiG-29 versions are equipped with.
Currently, the Bangladesh Air Force operates 212 aircraft, including 44 older third-generation fighter jets.
The P3Eb upgraded configuration for the Eurofighter is considered a better fit with the Bangladesh Armed Forces’ Goal 2030 modernization initiative.
Acquiring the European aircraft will also fill Bangladesh’s requirement to increase its regional airpower capacity and modernize the defense establishment’s infrastructure.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
