Thanks Jay,

It was an amazing two days spent with the Eurofighter Team on that hillside! The weather was atrocious on the Friday. A real shame there was no sunlight over the two days!

This video was shot from the other side of the valley from where I was. Shot on the first day of filming by an extremely talented amateur cameraman.

http://www.markjayne.co.uk/Videos/CadEastWeb.wmv

Cheers

TJ

Thanks TJ –
the video is a keepsake. Interestingly the rain (messy though it was) gives an amazing and different effect to some of your photographs (the moisture trail, seems to surpass a vapour trail).

I wonder how much use and help the rain and other varying thermal effects in places such as the Welsh valleys, is to Computational Fluid Dynamics experts? Everything in CFD can be/is simulated on supercomputers but there is nothing that beats the real thing and excellent photography (such as yours) can show variances in trails that can mean a lot to scientists.

On board external micro cameras can also bring back excellent results which can make the future of modern aircraft safer and more resiliant.

Keep up the excellent work and thanks for sharing

It’s probably going to be like the trademark sooty fin from the thrust reversers on the Tornado, not worth the bother to clean because it’ll get dirty again immediately.

The Tornado was into prototype in 1974 in comparison with the Eurofighter protoype in 1994 (20 years later), so I would have hoped that achieving pristine surfaces along the primary fuselage surfaces was also of relevance to engineers. It can sometimes be forgiveable at the tail, around primary engine outlets and on the underbelly.

The last photograph in this URL shows exactly what you are referring to on a Tornado.
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/AirShows/Riat2002/Tornado/Raf/TornadoThrustReversers.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/AirShows/Riat2002/Tornado/Raf/index.html&h=683&w=980&sz=74&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=QNH135HJjaSoYM:&tbnh=104&tbnw=149&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtornado%2Bthrust%2Breversers%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

Hi TJ

The sooty marks would be fairly easy to clean off. I took this snap from a Welsh hillside last year. The APU is visible.

http://www.airliners.net/photo/UK—Air/Eurofighter-EF-2000-Typhoon/1352061/L/

Another stupendous photograph and from a great location.

Maybe some of the other Air Forces do clean the sooty marks before turning the Eurofighter around hence my observation of the lack of the marks on some of the non RAF aircraft. e.g. http://www.eurofighter.com/medialibrary/details.asp?sortorder=0&page=0&numimages=18&MediaID=8104

Especially for airshows – low level flypasts and static displays it may be worth the RAF taking on this probably minor ‘cleaning’ chore.

http://www.eurofighter.com/news/20080610_a-gcap.asp indicates that the RAF have declared the Eurofighter combat ready from I July 2008 and therefore can be deployed on operations where ever they are required.

This vastly increases the potential of interested buyers in the world and having clean pristine display aircraft will only enhance their sales image.

According to the excellent cutaway drawing (by our very own Mike Badrocke) in the ‘Eurofighter Typhoon’ suplement given away in this months Air International…….

No 72 – APU Exhaust.

I do think though that they could have found somewhere else to put it – it makes a dirty stain on an otherwise pristine airframe.

Ken

Thanks my sentiments exactly.

They may hopefully improve on it in later variants.

Interestingly on some of the original Eurofighter website http://www.eurofighter.com/medialibrary/recent.asp recent photos of delivery and operational aircraft the same mark isn’t visible.

I remember seeing a very early likely aircraft do “The first fully aerobatic display sequence at Farnborough International in 1996”
http://www.eurofighter.com/news/article4.asp
and it is great to see it in service and at airshows as it has come a long way in those 12 years.