How high does the Eurofighter fly?

The manufacturer gives the Eurofighter Typhoon a service ceiling of 16,765 m (55,000 ft), and the Royal Air Force publishes the same figure. That is the practical limit for sustained flight: above it, air density no longer allows the aircraft to hold altitude with a margin for manoeuvre. In day-to-day operations, however, the aircraft spends far more time between 9,000 and 12,000 m (30,000-40,000 ft), the band where fuel burn is lowest and where it patrols on air-policing missions over the Baltic, the North Sea or the Mediterranean.

What sets the Typhoon apart is not so much its ceiling as how quickly it gets there. The manufacturer states that, with both EJ200 engines in afterburner, it goes from brakes released to 10,670 m (35,000 ft) and Mach 1.5 in under two and a half minutes. That vertical acceleration, the result of a thrust-to-weight ratio above 1 in interception configuration, is why air forces use it for quick reaction alert (QRA): the goal is to reach an intruder before it enters sensitive airspace.

At high altitude the Typhoon can sustain supersonic flight without afterburner, around Mach 1.2-1.3 with air-to-air weapons, which saves fuel and extends the reach of its Meteor and AMRAAM missiles, launched from above and with extra energy. For low-level flight, however, it was not optimised the way the Tornado it replaced was: its air-to-ground missions are planned from medium altitude, out of range of anti-aircraft artillery, using Paveway IV guided bombs and Brimstone missiles.