Janes Defence Weekly,
It had once been planned to use only the Eurofighter for Meteor's airborne trials, but now the Gripen will lead the flight test team as the only available 'mature' platform.
The first preliminary test flight with an instrumented Meteor missile did not take place until mid-December 2005. The first Meteor Air-Launched Demonstrator (ALD) firing was originally planned for October 2005, over the Vidsel range in Northern Sweden. This was to be followed by a second launch about a month later. The date for the first firing was then moved back to November and then into the following year. Jane's sources now suggest that programme issues will delay this event until February 2006.
In the final weeks of 2005 MBDA undertook several aircraft integration flights with the Meteor missile, while acknowledging that the planned airborne launch trials would not now take place on schedule.
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