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April 29th, 2007, 01:29 PM
The Telegraph's Adam Lusher tests the RAF's new Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft.......
Typhoon delivers the fright stuff
By Adam Lusher, Sunday Telegraph
29/04/2007
WHICH NATIONS' AIRFORCES ARE HAVING THE EUROFIGHTERS?
..................Total No of Eurofighters.......Current size of airforce (no of planes)
Britain.............232........................... ......1068
Germany..........180.............................. ....426 (but maybe reduced to 265 by 2015)
Italy................121.......................... ........585
Spain................87........................... .......620
Saudi Arabia........72.................................. 754
Austria..............18........................... ........161
Some joker has got his hands on of one of our aircraft. Unfortunately, that joker is me. I am at 36,000ft in an RAF Typhoon (aka the Eurofighter, cost £66.7 million), "flying" the result of Britain's most expensive and probably most controversial weapons project at almost the speed of sound above an unsuspecting part of Lincolnshire.
What is truly alarming is not the speed or the altitude or the cost, or even that I have just been asked to execute a turn, but the fact that to grip the control column, I have to detach at least one hand from the sick bag I am clutching to my chest.
Typhoon Eurofighters of 29 Squadron ready for Adam Lusher's day of instruction. In total, the RAF is having 232 of them
My single-handed wobbling of the stick isn't the "right stuff" either. "Normally," muses Group Captain Al Mackay from the seat in front of me, "we would pull more than 1.1G - given that 1G is what pilots experience when they are sitting on the ground."
The head of 29 Squadron retakes control for another "gentle turn". An invisible hand clamps me to my seat, then hurls me through the sky. Resistance is useless. Because I can't lift my arms. And there's insufficient air in my lungs to beg for mercy. An alarmingly calm voice promises: "That was about 3.5G. Of course, we regularly use 7 to 8G."
I knew I risked a rough ride with this aircraft, but then the Typhoon has had a pretty rough ride itself. Even when it was still just the "The Eurofighter", it was being derided as a "Cold War relic" - useful if the Soviet Union were to rise from the dead and send MiGs swarming into air-to-air dogfights over central Europe, but useless for supporting ground troops in today's battle against insurgents in the Afghan mountains.
The plane, a collaboration between Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain, was first conceived in the late 1970s and has been plagued by delays ever since. When the RAF received its first Typhoon in 2003, it was four-and-a-half years late. The National Audit Office has estimated that the Typhoon will cost the British taxpayer £19.67 billion, for an anticipated 232 aircraft, making it the most expensive weapons project in British history. In 2004, British overspend on the aeroplane reached £2.3 billion. Amid allegations of penny-pinching, it also emerged that the UK Typhoons were fitted with "dummy guns", for ballast rather than firing.
The one thing that no one has ever questioned is the manoeuvrability of the aircraft. And after an hour with Gp Capt Mackay, I certainly don't have any questions on the subject. You can't argue with a face this green. Gp Capt Mackay seems happy, though. He's waving his gloves around the cockpit. "Look, no hands. See how steady it is."
I check, yet again, that the ejector seat handle is still located between my knees.
In just two months' time, the Typhoon will be given its first operational task, going on Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) to protect Britain's airspace against the potential threats of foreign military jets or hijacked airliners. Then, next year, 11 Squadron is due to be declared ready for air-to-ground combat operations, and will probably leave for Afghanistan soon afterwards.
Its biggest battle until then (one hopes), will be convincing the public and sceptical elements of Parliament that this jet is not only value for money but a vital and versatile new part of Britain's defences. Which is why I'm clutching a sick bag somewhere above Lincolnshire - or is that now Scotland down there?
"We want to allow more informed commentary," said an RAF spokesman when I was volunteered for this mission. (Quite why The Sunday Telegraph's most fearful flyer was chosen to be "informed" is another matter. Suffice to say that newsroom politics can get quite brutal.)
Far better informed about the virtues of the aircraft are the men who fly it, and they are positively evangelical. When I arrive at RAF Coningsby, home for the Typhoons of 29, 3, 11 and 17 Squadrons, Gp Capt Stuart Atha, the station commander, tells me that the "Typhoon's adaptability beats any fast jet the RAF has ever flown. It's the new Spitfire. It's in a league of its own".
He should know. Coningsby is also the home of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, which includes veterans such as Spitfire P7350, the port wing still showing patched-up bullet holes from an encounter with an Me109 in 1940.
He ushers me past the cheery "Eject in Time" poster still raving about his new toy. "It has enormous development potential, and already its stability and power enables it to do things that older aircraft can't do. We will look back on it as having broken the mould, performing roles that hadn't even been conceived of when it entered service."
I am given essential (and probably classified) operational instructions: "Get it in the sick bag, or you will end up grounding the aircraft for a while." They strap me in. The sun shines on two Spitfires, one of them also bullet-scarred. Then Gp Capt Mackay decides to use "reheat" for take-off. Neat aviation fuel is injected into the back of the jet and ignited. Flames burst from the exhaust and 40,000lbs of thrust is exerted on 27,000lbs of aircraft, which accelerates from nought to 125 knots (144 miles per hour) in six seconds.
As good as vertical, we rocket to 7,000ft. Then Gp Capt Mackay levels off, by rolling. I am seconds into my flight, and upside down. Things do not improve. As we "supercruise" at Mach 1.2 (Mach 1 is the speed of sound), Gp Capt Mackay decides to spar with a Hawk trainer jet. I see something blue. It might be the sea. I am upside down again.
"We're probably using 5 or 6G now," he says in his best Sunday-drive-in-the-country voice. "All perfectly normal." I could have sworn the nice station doctor promised me I wouldn't encounter more than 4.5G.
Gp Capt Mackay, 45, spots a farmhouse. How does he strafe it? Let him count the ways. "I would run towards it at about 500ft, climb, then roll and dive on it." Useful though this may be in Afghanistan, he does not provide a practical demonstration. Thank God for the humour failures of farmers.
He adds, however: "With a 27mm cannon, you can achieve similar effects to high explosive, and it's very discriminating. I can see enemy troops here; friendlies there, and strafe the enemy. The gun is not desirable - it is essential for the aircraft on operational deployment to Afghanistan, for example."
Some critics might scent a chance to shoot down the whole argument about the Typhoon's usefulness here, because, of course, it doesn't have a 27mm cannon. Or rather it does, but the Mauser BK 27 that's fitted is currently only present as ballast. The other Eurofighter nations have air-to-air firing versions of the gun but in 2000 it was scrapped from the Typhoon supplied to the RAF.
Ministry of Defence officials decreed that the gun was of "questionable value and utility" in the era of laser-guided bombs. They kept the gun in the aircraft, though, because it provided "weight and balance". They just didn't buy the equipment to load it with shells. Now, thanks to Afghanistan, that decision is having to be rethought.
Even in the wider RAF, there is scepticism about the new combat jet. One source, contacted privately, admitted: "People joke that Typhoon is a great air display aeroplane. It is generations ahead as an airframe, and will be extremely capable when it's working. But at the moment, because of the kit it needs, it can't do the job."
Certainly, complex work is needed if the Typhoon is to meet the July 2008 deadline for air-to-ground combat readiness that would allow it to be deployed to Afghanistan. 17 Squadron, the operational evaluation unit, is busy putting Typhoon through trials with equipment including defences against surface-to-air weaponry.
Defence analysts counsel against deploying Typhoon with only a laser-guided bomb big enough to destroy a factory. A U-turn is imminent, confirms the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy: "We have re-evaluated that decision over the past year," he says. "We are conscious of minimising collateral damage and the gun is very discriminating. The operational case is pretty compelling."
An official decision, however, to "re-activate" the gun remains months away. Sir Glenn is unfazed: "The other nations are using the gun in the air-to-air mode, so we will not be breaking new ground. I don't see any showstoppers to delivering it, unless we suddenly face a technical glitch."
The Air Chief Marshal is, unsurprisingly, as convinced about the potential of this plane as any of his pilots. "We have never had this sort of performance before," he enthuses. And for you, my taxpayer, it all comes as cheap as chips.
Well, it does if you believe Mike Turner, the chief executive of BAE Systems, which builds the jet. "Typhoon will cost the UK taxpayer nothing," he claims. "If you look at it through its life, you see the wealth generation from creating the most highly skilled jobs: at BAE, about 5,000 people are employed directly on Typhoon. And you can export. The Tornado cost the UK £15 billion, but brought £40 billion into the economy in exports."
Such mercenary considerations do not, at the moment, trouble Gp Capt Mackay. He gently tweaks the stick and we climb supersonically to 55,000ft, demonstrating Typhoon's awesome power - unmatched by other RAF jets - to "manoeuvre up" away from the "threat envelope" of surface-to-air missiles. Nothing can dent his calm, except perhaps one thing. That's when a small voice behind him admits: "I am feeling awfully queasy now."
"Have you still got the bag open?" he asks, not so Sunday-drive-in-the-country for once. Whether this is because his front seat is now "in the threat envelope", or because he knows that getting combat jet cleaning through expenses is difficult, it is hard to tell. Either way, we seem to land very soon afterwards.
Everyone comments on my "Typhoon grin". No one realises it is a terra firma grin. (The more firmer, the less terror.) Gp Capt Atha speaks for many who have "informed" me: "The grin ain't a bad start, but I want to add some operational grit."
After 20 years, they may not have much longer to wait. Typhoon's toughest test yet looks about to begin.
telegraph.co.uk
The Telegraph's Adam Lusher tests the RAF's new Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft.......
Typhoon delivers the fright stuff
By Adam Lusher, Sunday Telegraph
29/04/2007
WHICH NATIONS' AIRFORCES ARE HAVING THE EUROFIGHTERS?
..................Total No of Eurofighters.......Current size of airforce (no of planes)
Britain.............232........................... ......1068
Germany..........180.............................. ....426 (but maybe reduced to 265 by 2015)
Italy................121.......................... ........585
Spain................87........................... .......620
Saudi Arabia........72.................................. 754
Austria..............18........................... ........161
Some joker has got his hands on of one of our aircraft. Unfortunately, that joker is me. I am at 36,000ft in an RAF Typhoon (aka the Eurofighter, cost £66.7 million), "flying" the result of Britain's most expensive and probably most controversial weapons project at almost the speed of sound above an unsuspecting part of Lincolnshire.
What is truly alarming is not the speed or the altitude or the cost, or even that I have just been asked to execute a turn, but the fact that to grip the control column, I have to detach at least one hand from the sick bag I am clutching to my chest.
Typhoon Eurofighters of 29 Squadron ready for Adam Lusher's day of instruction. In total, the RAF is having 232 of them
My single-handed wobbling of the stick isn't the "right stuff" either. "Normally," muses Group Captain Al Mackay from the seat in front of me, "we would pull more than 1.1G - given that 1G is what pilots experience when they are sitting on the ground."
The head of 29 Squadron retakes control for another "gentle turn". An invisible hand clamps me to my seat, then hurls me through the sky. Resistance is useless. Because I can't lift my arms. And there's insufficient air in my lungs to beg for mercy. An alarmingly calm voice promises: "That was about 3.5G. Of course, we regularly use 7 to 8G."
I knew I risked a rough ride with this aircraft, but then the Typhoon has had a pretty rough ride itself. Even when it was still just the "The Eurofighter", it was being derided as a "Cold War relic" - useful if the Soviet Union were to rise from the dead and send MiGs swarming into air-to-air dogfights over central Europe, but useless for supporting ground troops in today's battle against insurgents in the Afghan mountains.
The plane, a collaboration between Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain, was first conceived in the late 1970s and has been plagued by delays ever since. When the RAF received its first Typhoon in 2003, it was four-and-a-half years late. The National Audit Office has estimated that the Typhoon will cost the British taxpayer £19.67 billion, for an anticipated 232 aircraft, making it the most expensive weapons project in British history. In 2004, British overspend on the aeroplane reached £2.3 billion. Amid allegations of penny-pinching, it also emerged that the UK Typhoons were fitted with "dummy guns", for ballast rather than firing.
The one thing that no one has ever questioned is the manoeuvrability of the aircraft. And after an hour with Gp Capt Mackay, I certainly don't have any questions on the subject. You can't argue with a face this green. Gp Capt Mackay seems happy, though. He's waving his gloves around the cockpit. "Look, no hands. See how steady it is."
I check, yet again, that the ejector seat handle is still located between my knees.
In just two months' time, the Typhoon will be given its first operational task, going on Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) to protect Britain's airspace against the potential threats of foreign military jets or hijacked airliners. Then, next year, 11 Squadron is due to be declared ready for air-to-ground combat operations, and will probably leave for Afghanistan soon afterwards.
Its biggest battle until then (one hopes), will be convincing the public and sceptical elements of Parliament that this jet is not only value for money but a vital and versatile new part of Britain's defences. Which is why I'm clutching a sick bag somewhere above Lincolnshire - or is that now Scotland down there?
"We want to allow more informed commentary," said an RAF spokesman when I was volunteered for this mission. (Quite why The Sunday Telegraph's most fearful flyer was chosen to be "informed" is another matter. Suffice to say that newsroom politics can get quite brutal.)
Far better informed about the virtues of the aircraft are the men who fly it, and they are positively evangelical. When I arrive at RAF Coningsby, home for the Typhoons of 29, 3, 11 and 17 Squadrons, Gp Capt Stuart Atha, the station commander, tells me that the "Typhoon's adaptability beats any fast jet the RAF has ever flown. It's the new Spitfire. It's in a league of its own".
He should know. Coningsby is also the home of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, which includes veterans such as Spitfire P7350, the port wing still showing patched-up bullet holes from an encounter with an Me109 in 1940.
He ushers me past the cheery "Eject in Time" poster still raving about his new toy. "It has enormous development potential, and already its stability and power enables it to do things that older aircraft can't do. We will look back on it as having broken the mould, performing roles that hadn't even been conceived of when it entered service."
I am given essential (and probably classified) operational instructions: "Get it in the sick bag, or you will end up grounding the aircraft for a while." They strap me in. The sun shines on two Spitfires, one of them also bullet-scarred. Then Gp Capt Mackay decides to use "reheat" for take-off. Neat aviation fuel is injected into the back of the jet and ignited. Flames burst from the exhaust and 40,000lbs of thrust is exerted on 27,000lbs of aircraft, which accelerates from nought to 125 knots (144 miles per hour) in six seconds.
As good as vertical, we rocket to 7,000ft. Then Gp Capt Mackay levels off, by rolling. I am seconds into my flight, and upside down. Things do not improve. As we "supercruise" at Mach 1.2 (Mach 1 is the speed of sound), Gp Capt Mackay decides to spar with a Hawk trainer jet. I see something blue. It might be the sea. I am upside down again.
"We're probably using 5 or 6G now," he says in his best Sunday-drive-in-the-country voice. "All perfectly normal." I could have sworn the nice station doctor promised me I wouldn't encounter more than 4.5G.
Gp Capt Mackay, 45, spots a farmhouse. How does he strafe it? Let him count the ways. "I would run towards it at about 500ft, climb, then roll and dive on it." Useful though this may be in Afghanistan, he does not provide a practical demonstration. Thank God for the humour failures of farmers.
He adds, however: "With a 27mm cannon, you can achieve similar effects to high explosive, and it's very discriminating. I can see enemy troops here; friendlies there, and strafe the enemy. The gun is not desirable - it is essential for the aircraft on operational deployment to Afghanistan, for example."
Some critics might scent a chance to shoot down the whole argument about the Typhoon's usefulness here, because, of course, it doesn't have a 27mm cannon. Or rather it does, but the Mauser BK 27 that's fitted is currently only present as ballast. The other Eurofighter nations have air-to-air firing versions of the gun but in 2000 it was scrapped from the Typhoon supplied to the RAF.
Ministry of Defence officials decreed that the gun was of "questionable value and utility" in the era of laser-guided bombs. They kept the gun in the aircraft, though, because it provided "weight and balance". They just didn't buy the equipment to load it with shells. Now, thanks to Afghanistan, that decision is having to be rethought.
Even in the wider RAF, there is scepticism about the new combat jet. One source, contacted privately, admitted: "People joke that Typhoon is a great air display aeroplane. It is generations ahead as an airframe, and will be extremely capable when it's working. But at the moment, because of the kit it needs, it can't do the job."
Certainly, complex work is needed if the Typhoon is to meet the July 2008 deadline for air-to-ground combat readiness that would allow it to be deployed to Afghanistan. 17 Squadron, the operational evaluation unit, is busy putting Typhoon through trials with equipment including defences against surface-to-air weaponry.
Defence analysts counsel against deploying Typhoon with only a laser-guided bomb big enough to destroy a factory. A U-turn is imminent, confirms the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy: "We have re-evaluated that decision over the past year," he says. "We are conscious of minimising collateral damage and the gun is very discriminating. The operational case is pretty compelling."
An official decision, however, to "re-activate" the gun remains months away. Sir Glenn is unfazed: "The other nations are using the gun in the air-to-air mode, so we will not be breaking new ground. I don't see any showstoppers to delivering it, unless we suddenly face a technical glitch."
The Air Chief Marshal is, unsurprisingly, as convinced about the potential of this plane as any of his pilots. "We have never had this sort of performance before," he enthuses. And for you, my taxpayer, it all comes as cheap as chips.
Well, it does if you believe Mike Turner, the chief executive of BAE Systems, which builds the jet. "Typhoon will cost the UK taxpayer nothing," he claims. "If you look at it through its life, you see the wealth generation from creating the most highly skilled jobs: at BAE, about 5,000 people are employed directly on Typhoon. And you can export. The Tornado cost the UK £15 billion, but brought £40 billion into the economy in exports."
Such mercenary considerations do not, at the moment, trouble Gp Capt Mackay. He gently tweaks the stick and we climb supersonically to 55,000ft, demonstrating Typhoon's awesome power - unmatched by other RAF jets - to "manoeuvre up" away from the "threat envelope" of surface-to-air missiles. Nothing can dent his calm, except perhaps one thing. That's when a small voice behind him admits: "I am feeling awfully queasy now."
"Have you still got the bag open?" he asks, not so Sunday-drive-in-the-country for once. Whether this is because his front seat is now "in the threat envelope", or because he knows that getting combat jet cleaning through expenses is difficult, it is hard to tell. Either way, we seem to land very soon afterwards.
Everyone comments on my "Typhoon grin". No one realises it is a terra firma grin. (The more firmer, the less terror.) Gp Capt Atha speaks for many who have "informed" me: "The grin ain't a bad start, but I want to add some operational grit."
After 20 years, they may not have much longer to wait. Typhoon's toughest test yet looks about to begin.
telegraph.co.uk
