Airforces - Typhoon school

(Jacob Rumans) #1

has many facets and a host of influencing
factors that come into play each and every day.
For Flt Lt Phil, this fleshes out as a six-month
stint on the OCU, with the ultimate goal being for
him to emerge as a multi-role-capable Typhoon
pilot who requires minimal further training on his
frontline unit to become combat ready. Getting
suitably schooled pilots through the system and
out to the expanding front line – where they can
make a meaningful immediate contribution – this
is the bread and butter of No 29 Squadron.
Phil has come to Coningsby direct from
the Advanced Flying Training course at RAF
Valley, in Wales, on the Hawk T2. He is what
is known as an ab-initio, a brand new fighter
pilot. “There’s four people on my course,”
he tells AFM. “One is an ex-Tornado F3
crossover pilot, but the rest of us are ab-initios
who completed the Valley course with No IV
Squadron in June and came here in October.”
With a cockpit layout identical to the
Typhoon, and clever use of embedded
synthetic training aids and simulation, the
Hawk T2 was designed from the outset to
smooth the step to the Typhoon OCU.
Flt Lt Craig is a little further into his Typhoon
course. At 27 he’s one of the youngest pilots
currently flying the jet, although it’s been a
relatively protracted process for him to move
through the training system. Speaking to
AFM in January, he was weeks away from the
ultimate prize of graduating from the OCU and
heading north to join a frontline squadron at
RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland. “I started here
in July 2017 having been at Valley for a year
and a half, and I was at Linton [RAF Linton-
on-Ouse, North Yorkshire, flying the Tucano]
before that. After EFT [Elementary Flying
Training, EFT] I had a two-year gap, having
commissioned as a direct entrant in 2010.”
Reflecting on his time in the Hawk T2, Flt Lt
Craig comments: “Aeroplane-wise, the stick
and throttles do the same thing in the Hawk and
the Typhoon. Now I’m in a single-seat fighter
and I’ve got a range of systems to manage.
The flying is becoming second nature, and this
means I can concentrate on the mission and


the systems.” Comparing the Hawk T2 and
the Typhoon, Craig adds: “They have the same
computers, the same displays and when you
get to the Typhoon the logic feels familiar. It’s
about how the systems interact with each other,
how you manipulate the radar, that kind of
thing, so those who have come from the T2 to
the Typhoon tend to have a simpler journey.”
Craig is at the OCU with several of his
contemporaries. “People I was commissioned
with are with me on my course now,” he
explains. “We’ve been through training together
and that’s useful because we all know how
each other works, so when we need to have
a conversation now, about something quite
technical, we understand how each other tackles
problems or where we are coming from. I often
recall how we did things at Valley, and – surprise,
surprise – the training system all ties together.”

From simulator to first flight
The exhilaration of graduating at Valley is met
with the possibility of having to ‘hold’ for the
Typhoon OCU, however, a quick transition to
the RAF’s premier fighter station is clearly the
ambition. Typhoons flying max-performance
departures and the magical drone of Battle
of Britain Memorial Flight aircraft in the circuit
are sure to get a young fighter pilot’s blood
pumping, even if it is four weeks of ground
school that awaits them. This first phase of
the No 29 Squadron journey at Coningsby is
in the impressive TTF, run by BAE Systems.
Classroom tuition gives the students intimate
knowledge of the Typhoon and its systems.
Simulator work and cockpit procedures
training follows – getting the students’ mindset
into slickly handling the mind-boggling array
of checks that come with each phase of a
Typhoon mission. This is all about ensuring
they are safe to operate the aircraft. “The
simulator work here equates to about 60% of
the ‘flying’. It’s all simulator at the start and
you get about eight or nine trips in the cockpit
trainer and the full 360-degree dome simulator,”
explains Flt Lt Craig. The focus is on getting
used to strapping in wearing the full kit, inflating

g-pants and some of the sensations of flying
the powerful Typhoon. The large ASTA Full
Mission Simulator (FMS) is combined with
the slightly less immersive cockpit simulator
to do all the work necessary for the pilot to
be signed off to get their hands on the real
aircraft. Further explaining the early work in
the sim, Flt Lt Craig says: “Trip one is start-up,
taxi out and take-off, then almost immediately
the instructor puts you on finals to land. The
second ‘flight’ is circuits and starting to feel
what you can do in the Typhoon, for example
it’s the first time you try putting the engines
into afterburner, getting used to the gate on
the throttles. Then you build towards going
to an alternate airfield, practise a bit of low
level, then start the emergency handling, the
‘what ifs’. That’s the beauty of the sim, you
aren’t in an aircraft pretending it’s happened –
the instructor will actually flame out an engine
and you have to relight it, or they’ll run you
out of fuel, give you a leak, that kind of thing.
We’re assessed in the sim to make sure we’re
procedurally safe to do it in a real aircraft.”
The simulator training, used as a solo
check, is so good that pilots can go solo
on their first time in the actual aircraft.
While some pilots coming across from other
types have flown their first live Typhoon flight
solo, currently the ab-initios get their first taste
of the real aeroplane in a two-seat ‘T-bird’ with
an instructor in the back, for what is known
as a ‘dual check’. “Our first live flight is dual
to ensure we’re safe,” says Craig. “On that
first live flight the instructor is there to give you
the realisms of the things that tend to happen
or might go wrong. For example, in the sim,
removing the chocks takes a nanosecond. You
press a button and it takes the chocks away. In
real life the engineer removes the left chock and
then walks round to the right, so that can put you
off your flow the first time around. The instructor
in the back is there to pick you up and put you
back on the train track that you know and have
practised, but you are flying the jet, you are
making the radio calls, you take off, fly to another
airfield, fly an approach. Ultimately, it’s like the

70 // APRIL 2018 #361 http://www.airforcesmonthly.com

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