Eurofighter Typhoon: Emotions at 9G

Video from the channel smilan1899 about Eurofighter Typhoon, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 30:35. Language: Italian. Video type: Archive footage.

Period piece about the Eurofighter Typhoon flown by Maurizio Cheli, chief test pilot at Alenia Aeronautica. It opens with an aerobatic display filmed from the cockpit and narrated by the pilot himself: full-power take-off with about 18 t of thrust, vertical climb, 7-8 g turns, high angle-of-attack rolls, loops and landing. Cheli then talks with a former F-104 squadron mate who now flies the MB-339, and shows him the cockpit. The piece continues with a flutter test flight filmed from a Learjet, the pilot's preparation with the anti-g suit, a briefing, the telemetry room and a final interview.

It is set in the early days of the aircraft with the Aeronautica Militare: according to the commentary, Grosseto already has six or seven aircraft and the first single-seaters are arriving, while the F-104 is being retired. The test aircraft is one of the seven prototypes, the second built in Italy by Alenia. The briefing mentions a transfer to Caselle. It was uploaded to YouTube in 2022.

Cheli explains the design: a delta wing with canards, whose vortices increase overall lift; aerodynamic instability corrected by a four-computer fly-by-wire system with automatic carefree handling; about 16 t of weight, 5 of which are fuel; close to 70% of the wetted surface in composite materials; air intakes with a movable lower lip; the PIRATE infrared sensor and sensor data fusion. In the cockpit, three multifunction displays stand out, along with the head-up display, HOTAS controls and direct voice input (DVI). In the telemetry room, over 1,000 parameters are monitored live and about 11,000 are recorded. According to Cheli, a display lasts between 5 and 6 minutes, uses about 2,000 kg of fuel and is almost always flown at the aircraft's limits. He also highlights its ability to lose and regain about 200 knots in a few seconds.