This weekend the RAF finaly had clearance to perform a no holds barred public demonstration of the Typhoon to the British public.
This was at RAF Waddinton in Lincolnshire and I was there for three days! Back home now I reckon that I just saw the best air display in the last 5 years.
Having watched the Reds put on a fabulous, polished and original perfomance we were treated to the delights of a two seat Hungarian Mig 29 rend the sky assunder with a demonstartion of raw power and gut wretnching agility. Couple that with sex appeal of a Russian female tennis player and you have a heady combination indeed; one that surely could not be surpassed.
And then came the Typhoon! Well, I mean. Jesus Christ! I have seen model jets take longer to get airborne, and today with a clear blue sky, he let her rip. 400 yards, wheels up and pulls 7 g into the vertical for a square loop. Well I new it could turn but until you see this machine really put through its paces you have no idea. At no point during its diplay did it fly outside the airfield boundary.
Then it demonstrated a characteristic I was not really aware of until now. Approaching the left hand end of the runway, throttled back and at 120 knots, he open the taps. We have a sky dragster! God can this thing go. 5.6 sconds later its doing 600 kts! He then pulls vertcal again and in under 10 seconds he is pulling over the top at 10,000 feet.
I believe I hold a reasonable command of the English language, but I have run out of words to describe this jets performance.
Just amazing.[8D]
John

Did you shoot any video???? Please post it if you did. [8D]

Sharapova?[:-][sm=thumbup.gif]

Can't wait to see the Eurofighter doing to the stuff you've described! No photos? or were you too amazed?

Dave

Sorry Guys,
no video. However, I have several rolls of film in the can. Sadly the Cannon 10d battery went flat unexpectedly otherwise I would be posting the shots tonight.
I will post them as soon as I get the film back.
Regards,
John.

Hi John

Please tell us you have a new colour scheme for the Eurofighter Thyphoon!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are in desperate need of a new Eurofighter scheme for our models. Hopefully there is someone out there that has got video for us less fortunate souls who were not able to see it. I have seen the Discovery program on the development of the Eurofighter including the G-suit and G-boots. The zipper on the jacket for example closes from top to bottom so that under g-forces the zipper can only go down which in this case is closed!

Please post pictures.

Zane

Call me a skeptic.. but I have a serious doubt about it's ability to accelerate from 120 kts to 600 kts in 5.6 seconds. That's a hellacious energy increase in a VERY short period of time. The official Eurofighter website at http://www.eurofighter.com claims 200kts to Mach 1 acceleration to be 30 seconds.

Having seen both the YF-22 and YF-23 doing supersonic test runs in the supersonic corridor northeast of Nellis AFB in the early 1990's during the ATF fly-off, I can tell you for a fact that nothing has even come close to their acceleration rates.

Dear Sir
Yes I will call you a skeptic, and by the way skeptic is spelt sceptic and I will also call you a typical
American. Everything you have is far better than everybody else's.
The chap who posted this thread was at an airshow and probably got his information from
the commentator be it right or wrong. Whether the Eurofighter Typhoon will out perform the F22
is another matter but I can tell you this it is by far, a better looking aircraft.

The English Electric Lightning which has been out of service for about twenty years
would out perform your still in service F15 Eagle, fact.
Enjoy your 4th of July.

Sounds like you had a great time John!

nmacwarbirds...Sounds like you need to step away from the PC for awhile . You came off quite harsh.
Doug simply made a comment and was not calling the Typhoon inferior.

Hi John,

I was lucky enough to be there on the Saturday too!

All I can say you guys is that John is not lying or exagerating about the performance of this baby!

Awesome. I only wish they could have mocked a dof fight with the mig 29!!!!!

I have acouple of grainy photos from the day!

Bigbubba

Woops, I mean dog fight!nyway here are some more photos!


Bigbubba

Great Pictures, sounds and seems like it was a great time.


Thank you for the report, keep posting please......



Johnny Hernandez

Hi Johnny,

Yes it was an awesome day!

The best birds there though had to be these two!

The smaller one is native to North America, I can't exactly remember the name but I believ it to be something like a 'western screech owl'? I am sure someone will put me right!

I also managed to get pretty close to this Romanian Mig 21, I am not kidding, it had just had a new paint job and it was brushed on! You could see where the bristles were stuck in the paint!!!

Bigbubba

That first owl doesn't look impressed

I bet listening to afterburners all day does that.......good thing owls dont hear that well.. [X(]

Ha! Now that is funny! What a sense of humor! Kind of makes you wonder why it was taken out of service, doesn't it?

Bob

nmacwarbirds, In most dictionaries here, you will find both spellings of the word acceptable. as far as the eurofighter looking far better, you know what they say about the eyes of the beholder.

We Americans are not as bad as you obviously think, and many freely give credit where due...... for example, you Brits have a delightful sense of humor, The electric lightning joke was a riot! Benny Hill funny ya know?

Because it was 20 years ahead of the F-15.

H

Dear Harry C
Thanks for stating the obvious for our American friends

Regards Phil G.

I thought the purpose of a fighter was to KILL other Aircraft. Is there a suggestion here that the Lighting could, in a one-on-one or ten-on-ten air battle be victorius over the F -15? If so why are they no longer in service? Just curious, how many countries flew the lightning? Perhaps you meant to say it had some aspects of its performance that matched or beat that of a typical F-15 - yes? I mean lets face it, A WWII Sopwith Camel can turn inside of the F 15 too, does that mean it is a better fighter? I love the humor here. sm=lol.gif]

Bubba,

I'm suprised to see that Sally-B was flying. Last I heard was that she was grounded due to newly imposed insurance requirements that put her into the same catagory as a commercial 737.

As far as the Lightning goes, I always thought it was a really cool aircraft, but thought it very odd that they mounted the missles on the TOP of the wing.

Hey Connery,

I was pretty amazed to see Sally B there. There wasn't a mention of it being grounded by the commentator. I was going to ask the ground crew btu they were way too busy selling stuff!

I hope they have the issues sorted out long term because it was great to see the old girl flying. I was very surprised to see the size difference between the B17 and the Lancaster, the Lanc looked huge in comparison, I don't know if this is truer or if it was just an illusion?

As for the Lightning/F15 debate, its like comparing chalk and cheese, technology wise the F15 would be able to blow the sh*t out of the lightning before the Lightnings radar even thought of looking for the F15 but the Lightning could scramble and get to 30,000 much faster than the F15.

They are undeniable facts, what is subject to personal opinion and MY OPINION, the Lightning is more attractive, maybe not because it actually is, but maybe because it is symbolic of an emotional memorable era? Who knows?! What I am sure of though, is that some of you will agree with me and some of you wont!

Bubba

IIRC, the Lancaster is actually marginally smaller than the B17 - like about 2' less on the wingspan and length, or something like that. Girth wise though, the Lanc is probably larger... which it probably needed to be, given that it had a larger bomb load capability than the B17 ever managed.

Good to see the pic's of the B.o.B flight - pity it's just the three aircraft though ... on a couple of occasions I've seen the Mossie joined up in the formation, which made an awesome sight (and sound, with those 8 Merlin's singing together!)

As for the Lightning ... does anyone know whether it still holds the record as the fighter with the highest tire pressure ?

Not sure about the tyre pressures, but I have just found thi sgreat site -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Electric_Lightning

Hows this for a cool quote -

'In British Airways trials, Concorde was offered as a target to NATO fighters including F-15s, F-16s, F-14s, Mirages, F-104s - but only the Lightning managed to overtake Concorde on a stern intercept. During these trials Concorde was at 57,000 ft and travelling at Mach 2.2.'

I didn't realise it could climb at 50,000 feet per minute!?


Wow!


Bubba

[sm=lol.gif]Good one Gordon, I think this thread needed that!

Geez, how often do we have to say it? It was nearly 20 years before the F15, so by 1988 the airframes were absolutely clapped out (actually they were worn out many years earlier by the time the F15 was coming into service) but the RAF was short of aircraft and had to force it it to keep flying. In its latter years, bits had a tendency to fall off as the plane accelerated down the runway. The airframes were just too old to carry on.

The RAF issued the requirement in 1947, the first prototype flew in 1954 and it went into service with the RAF in 1960.

We hear much about the F22 being able to supercruise (be supersonic without reheat), well the Lightning was doing that back in 1957.

Sadly the Lightning was crippled from the start by the pro-Soviet-Union Labour Government in Britain, which destroyed British aircraft manufacturing, insisted that missiles were replacing aircraft and demanded that the Lightning should have a miniscule range (a problem which then dogged it all through its various marks), and actually went around behind English Electric's back to foreign governments telling them not to buy the Lightning! AFAIK only Saudi Arabia and Kuwait bought Lightnings. Some Labour MPs were so determined to kill the Lightning that when a test airframe broke during deliberate test-to-destruction, Labour MPs were running around Parliament gleefully shouting to each other that the Lightning had broken so it was a failure and should be scrapped. The poor Lightning (indeed poor Britain) never stood a chance against the onslaught of the wickedness of the deeply socialist/communist Labour Government.

The Lightning did not carry missiles on top of the wings, but it did carry extra fuel tanks there if required. I lived near a Lightning base and I never saw those tanks in use.

I loved the Lightning like no other plane, I have never seen anything to rival it in flight for excitement. With the increasing larger under-belly fuel tanks it looked like a pregnant pig on the ground, but once those wheel came off the ground it was awesome.

H