delusionofgrandeur

The BBC reported earlier that an RAF Eurofighter Typhoon, presumably of 17 Squadron RAF Coningsby, went supersonic over Shropshire at about 4pm today.

The Typhoon with two crew reportedy made an emergency descent from 30,000 feet down to 10,000 feet and inadvertently exceeded the speed of sound causing a sonic boom. The reason for the emergency descent was given as a ’systems failure’.

I would speculate that the most likely ’systems failure’ to necessitate a rapid descent to 10,000 feet would be a failure of a crew ‘breathing vest’ or loss of breathing oxygen (perhaps even a wardrobe-malfunction with a mask). The crew would probably use oxygen at any altitude above 10,000 feet. Loss of oxygen would lead quickly to hypoxia and unconsciousness.

Pushing the nose down at high subsonic speeds in the Typhoon would probably take you supersonic in short order and to be frank; if I was at the controls and thought I could be risking unconsciousness, I’d get get down below 10,000ft as soon as possible, supersonic or not.

Unfortunately for some Shropshire residents, they were treated to what would probably have been a loud ‘double-boom’ (one from the nose, one from the tail) with no obvious source. Of course, like all good citizens, they have been trained to be scared of their own shadow and the BBC carries quotes from suitably ‘anxious’ and ‘frightened’ people.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 11:45 pm and is filed under Automotive, News, Tech News.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.