- [Noble] I'm going to
point into the mountain and using the excessive power
to get up, do the hill climb, showing the crowd the
afterburner from behind. (dramatic music) We are using a five to six-G
pull up to get vertical to get some separation
from the Mollis airfield. The first maneuver is kind
of the G exercise for me. And then from there on you have to be fit, otherwise you have to cancel your display. (engine roaring) All right, so powerful engines, they provide actually two
times 90 kilonewtons of thrust, meaning we have more
thrust than the weight. It's no autopilot in there. It's everything flown
by hand and manually. And then you see what
we use during the flight and you see how we get
against the G-forces to do our display. (engine roaring) I wanna recommend we get
ready for the display. Let's move out. - This is a German Air
Force Eurofighter Typhoon and in today's video we
are gonna accompany Noble, a German Air Force fighter pilot, through his entire day here at an air show in mountainous Switzerland,
so let's come along. (hand smacking) (dramatic music) (engine roaring) - All righty guys, so we are
getting ready for the flight and prior to that, I
want to explain something about the Eurofighter Typhoon to you. What we got here is
single seater Tranche-1. You can see it on the
numbers, it's a 3-0-0-7, so one of the older planes. It doesn't matter for the display because it has the same engines,
the same powerful thrust. (engine roaring) What we do now, we are
going to walk around, get you some info, how the aircraft works. What you see up there is the canards, which are highly maneuverable,
makes really easy for us so the whole flight control
system works for us. Everything is done by computers but still the display itself
is going to be flown via hand so there's no autopilot in there. It's everything flown
by hand and manually. For safety what you see
up there, of course, we got a ejection seat in there. It's a Martin Baker MK 16
seat, zero-zero capability, so we can eject even on
the runway with no speed and get safe out of the aircraft if something really goes down the drain. Here we got a clean configuration so we got no tanks out there. It gives us even more power. So what you actually can see here, it's our powerful engines. They provide actually two
times 90 kilonewtons of thrust, and the afterburner, meaning
you got 18 tons of thrust, meaning we have more
thrust than the weight so we can go vertical, use the full power. See it's quite small engines, but nevertheless they're
super, super powerful. And also for safety, as you
can see on the red flags, we got a chute in there, meaning we got a small
runway here in Mollis which is quite unusual for our Typhoons, but we can use the chute to
increase our brake distance and, not here for Mollis, but if you want to check it out here, we got the hook down there, meaning if something really happens, for example, if the hydraulics fail out, I have to go somewhere and
the brakes are not working, I can go to a divert field and use the cable with
that hook down there and then land safely, of course. If you want to go on big missions, what we normally do, we
have two outboard tanks, gives us a normal flight duration. What we do usually during
a mission is a 1 hour 30. Can extend of course
longer if we fly slower and we can use another third tank, which goes down at the fuselage. So we can even extend the range more. What else we got? We got 13 stations for weapons, meaning we can use GBU-48 bombs, we can use AMRAAM missiles,
we can use Meteor missiles, and as well on the tips on the outside we can use short-range
missiles, the IRIS-T. As you check out the wings, the wing tips, the sensors for us for self protection, and on the right side we
also got a small thing which helps us to protect ourself. Other than that, big rudder, we got a air brake at the aircraft, and of course the big delta wing which gives us the advantage that we can fly really, really slow. And on the other side it always
gives us the lift from below so it's really easy to fly. It has an autopilot for
the normal flight use and everything is done by the computer. So as a pilot in the Eurofighter Typhoon you are more a data manager than a pilot, because the aircraft is
doing a lot on its own. So it's quite easy to fly,
it's quite easy to land, it's quite easy to start, but nevertheless there's a lot of information coming in there, and you have to process
all the information, get it to the other guys in your flight. And that's the main part about
how we fly tactical missions. Display is completely different. So a lot of people asked us
already, can you here land at Mollis, because the runway
is actually really short. Yes, we can. So, but the only thing we have to do before we get a permission for this because the shortage of the runway, so what we normally use in
our country is 8,000 feet one, which is the standard for NATO. Here it is 5,800, so it's
quite a little bit short. Nevertheless I showed you
already the drag chute which helps us out and our commander at our base gave us a
permission to land here and to take off here
again, so different for us, but we also have a nice brakes down there. It's carbon brakes, carbon fiber brakes. So as you can see in sport
cars, we have the same. So first tapping the
brakes, nothing happens, but as soon as you tap a second time the brakes fully go in there and then you have a lot of braking action. And one of the things you see down there, it's actually a cooling
fan because, of course, the brakes getting really hot
if you have a short runway. And so we have electrical
cooling down there to get the brakes again
to a normal temperature and to get ready for the next flight and don't overheat the brakes. One other aspect for the Typhoon is, as you can see up there and there, we got formation lights. They're for night flying,
especially for the formation. So if you have a closeup formation the other guy can check out. If you have your lights on, you can somehow check out the distance, how far you are apart from the other guy. It's green lighting for the
night, so it works really well and the Typhoon is all-weather capable. We can fly during night times
and helps us really get out. And what else can you see
right next to the canard? We got a air-to-air
fueling system up there. So meaning if you go to a tanker, we can use a bunch of tankers. So using a KC-135, using A400, the MC-130, doesn't matter for us. If they have a basket, we can go there and refuel during the flight and get some more fuel
into the system again to extend our mission range for the tactical missions. Guys, that was it on the
outside of the Typhoon, I wanna recommend we get
ready for the display. Let's move out. (energetic music) Okay, Akash, sure. Here we are now with the equipment. So I would say we take a look over it and then you see what
we use during the flight and you see how we get
against the G-forces to do our display. So what we got here? First we got our life vest. As you can see and feel,
it feels quite heavy. - [Akash] Already? - It is quite heavy already, so what you got in here,
you got a swim bubble, so if you are ejecting over water, you still have the chance to survive because there's swim bubble and we also got a little
boat in the cockpit. It's in the ejection seat so
you can survive over water, but guess what, it's only for one person, so it's pretty small. - Yeah, but you won't
need it in Switzerland. - Exactly. (Akash and Noble laugh) what we got else here,
this is our connection to the ejection seat itself, meaning over this piece
here we get the oxygen air into the mouth for breathing and then on the other side
we also connect our trouser, which I will show you in a second, which inflates during the
display and during the flight so you can handle against the G-forces and work against it. So this is actually the second part, which is the trouser.
- Your pants, yeah. - The pants, yeah. You can also feel that
it's also quite heavy. - Yeah, and both together. - Yeah, both together. And of course you got a helmet as well, which during nine-G turns is
pretty heavy on your neck. You know, there's a lot
of forces coming up there. The helmet is about two kilograms, so multiply that with nine,
you got 18 kilos on your neck, so that's pretty hard. So you have to do a lot of
training to work against it. - Yeah, already need a
massage only from hearing it. - Exactly. (laughs) So the suit itself, it inflates fully, meaning the blood is going to get over in the part of the stomach and then the vest itself
also inflates a little bit. So you get most of the
blood into your head and still can think clear
during a nine-G turn and fly the display. - How many Gs will you reach today? - Approximately nine plus.
- Nine? - That's not too bad, yeah, and so what you can say, I
don't know how heavy you are or how light you are, maybe 70 kilos, you have to multiply that with nine and that's the actual
force which is going down to earth at nine-G. - Okay, 630 kilos.
- There we go. - Ouch.
(ominous music) Noble, 45 minutes to go. You seem super calm. What goes through your head? Do you have any rituals
you do before the flight? - Actually I'm super
calm now at the moment. Yes, I got my line-up card,
I got the display on there, so I'm checking out the parameters
if everything is correct, just visualizing everything. Then of course, getting a
drink, going to the toilet, and that's actually the ritual. - All right, I don't wanna
hold you up any further, so please. - See you later. - Thanks, see you soon.
- Thanks a lot. See ya. So now we're walking to the aircraft. What we do next, my maintenance
crew is still in the use of the aircraft, but they're
going to hand it over now to me. I'm going to take over the aircraft and from then on it's mine
for the next 10 minutes for the display, and then I'm
going to hand it over back with the flight hours, or
flight minutes, actually, for the display, and then the maintenance
is in response again. We're going to do the walk around now, so it's just a self check for myself. I'm looking at all the system, if every everything is
looking correct on there. If we don't have any hydraulic leaks, I'm checking the tires,
checking the lights down there, if everything is correct,
checking the engines, and then I'm going to hop into the cockpit and getting ready for
my flight down there. The maintenance crew downstairs, they're getting the jet ready and we are going to
start the engines up now. They're going to perform
the final checks for me, meaning that all systems
are running up correctly. I'm checking my systems in the cockpit and I'm actually going to set
up the display information here for Mollis, so I got a box, which is one nautical mile wide and three nautical miles long. So this is the box I am going to play in, which is close to the airfield
and close to the mountains. And as you can see on the ground now, these guys are walking
around, do their final checks, and what we do next when
the systems are full up, we go to the last chance, meaning I'm going to roll
forward now with my aircraft and the guys are checking if
we have any leaks down there, if the tires are fully correct, and then they send me off, actually. And takes about two minutes. So we have the final checks
done, every pins are removed so no red flags down there, and now we can go for
the takeoff, actually. Okay, here we are now for the lineup. So I got my clearance from
Mollis, on the runway. The last display stopped
so I'm ready to go now. I got the final clearance for my display, and the first maneuver
you can actually see is the massive performance takeoff, meaning I'm going down the runway, using all the speed I can
get, getting the gear up, and then we're using a
five to six-G pull up to get vertical, to get some separation from the Mollis airfield. And then what you also
see is a screw drive and then I'm going to hit
down to the ground again to 500 feet to start the next maneuver. Next maneuver is going to
be a reposition maneuver to set myself up for the display line, meaning you have a display line, which is a white color for
us, for the jet pilots, and it's a distance actually to the crowd, that you have a safe distance down here. And then the first
maneuver you can see here, is a Cuban-eight figure,
consists of two loops, starting at about 450
knots indicated speed and then pulling up nine Gs, going vertical on the other side and then using about
a 70 degrees nose down to get into a safe position again. Pulling up again with about five to six Gs and then using max read of course to get on the other side again. That was the second maneuver. Seeing now the third maneuver
is a reposition again, of course. And then from there on I'm
going to go parallel again to the runway and then showing
the crowd the afterburner from behind, so I'm going
to point into the mountain and using the excessive power
to get up, do the hill climb and come back for another parallel lineup and for the next reposition
to start the next maneuver. (engine droning) What you can see next
is actually a slowdown. What we use here is about
1,000 feet above the ground, just for safety level if
you're getting too slow, so we still have the
distance to the ground to safely maneuver us out and using the engines to get
from the ground away again. And in the maneuver itself
you can see the slow flight which is about a 130
knots indicated speed. Quite slow for the Eurofighter Typhoon. And then the cool thing about this, if you're plugging the
re-heat for the next maneuver, we are just doing the
vertical climb out now, so using the low level extreme AOAs and getting up there is vertical climb what you can see in the next maneuver. And this is one of the
most great maneuvers in the Eurofighter, because
you can actually see the massive performance of the both engines braking down there. (engine droning)
(energetic music) (engine continues droning)
(energetic music continues) As you can see, down the half
loop, we are at speed again using about a 350, 400 knots again for the next reposition
close to the mountain, which is absolutely
amazing if you go up there with a 70 degrees high, and then come back for the next maneuver. For the next maneuver we got the... We tilted actually Cuban-eight now, so it's closer to the mountain, still spectacular for the
visitors down on the ground. And we're going into
this, into the maneuver with about 400, 500 knots. And this is one of the maneuvers we're using the full potential of nine G, so this is where the high Gs and where the pilot actually
fully stressing the aircraft and stressing your own body. So you have to do a little
bit for it and work it out. (engine droning)
(energetic music) (engine continues droning)
(energetic music continues) After the maneuver we're
going for the next reposition and coming back to the display line and you can see a slow aileron
roll, which is controlled. For the first step we're using
about 10 degrees nose high, because, so the Eurofighter
rolls a little bit different than other aircraft, it's
not the axis of the aircraft, but it's slightly tilted. So we're using about 10
degrees nose high and then from there on we're going to
start the rolling maneuver. So it just looks better on the ground and it's easier for us, eventually. Then from there on we
got another reposition close to the mountain. (engine droning)
(energetic music) (engine continues droning)
(energetic music continues) Coming back and using the
read again, of course, to get to 500 knots and
then using the spiral up to about flight level 120,
so about four kilometers, just a few seconds. (engine droning)
(energetic music) Tilting the picture for
the nose down again, doing another spiral
down for the visitors, which I think looks great. (engine droning)
(energetic music) And then come back for the last
pass, which is a fast pass, but the display stopped there already so I can go to 300 feet. So I closed the display already because our display is down to 500 feet. Display closed and then from there on I can do the low fly-by, 300 feet, and then come back for the full stop. (engine roaring) Bam. And then for the full
stop we use the air brake just additionally because
we got some height there, just to slow down the aircraft and as I told you already, Mollis has a short runway, so we're using as well the drag chute to get down to a safe landing speed, and as well show the crowd, of course, the drag chute, which is
quite impressive also for us because it helps a lot. And that was the part of the display here. (mellow music) - [Akash] These were the
longest seven minutes I've ever experienced. - It was not seven minutes,
it was actually 12 minutes, so... (laughs)
- For our pleasure, thank you very much. - Absolutely. - Do you feel sore or anything? I was exhausted holding my camera, but (laughs) I was always thinking of you with the 18-kilogram helmet. (chuckles) - Yeah, it's kind of, of course, yeah, so after like 10 minutes' flight, it's like a sports
program, actually, yeah. So you are totally sweaty and going back out, the first thing you have to
do is to drink something. - Of course.
- Yeah, and as you can imagine, if
you're sitting in the cockpit, the sun is burning down, even when the engines are not running, you don't have the AC. It's really hot in air,
like 50 degrees Celsius. And actually when the engines
start then the cooling starts in the cockpit. The display itself, it's quite comfortable because it's cool in there. But other than that
you have to work a lot. - For sure. And what was your max speed? - 500 knots indicated speed. That's the maximum we can do
according to our regulations. So it's not the aircraft,
it's the regulations. - From what I've heard fighter jet pilots always do maybe some low-G maneuvers to get into the high Gs. - We normally do a GX, so if you fight a classical
dock fight, one versus one, we first do a exercise,
getting some Gs on there, checking out the system
if everything works well, if the body is working well, and then we go into the mission itself. And that's actually not
possible on a display because the first thing you
do is putting Gs on the jet and on your body. So the first maneuver is kind
of the G exercise for me. And then from there on you have to be fit, otherwise you have to cancel your display and do it the next day. - Noble, last question of the day. I would really like to know
what was your aviation highlight through your career so far? (engine roaring) (playful music) - The highlight actually was last year. So our wing deployed to
Australia for a big exercise. So with those aircraft we actually hopped down
from Neuburg Air Force Base, which is our home base, to Abu Dhabi. From Abu Dhabi we hopped to Singapore. From Singapore to Australia,
which was already a crazy trip of course for us, because it was the longest
distance we ever did. Being in Australia to
do a two-week exercise with partners we did not fly so far with. Was other nations, like
Japan, it was Indonesia, it was India, Australia of course, we had French guys, so
there was people all around from the world, flying big missions. So during the missions
there were like 100 aircraft in the air. During the nighttime it was pitch black as the exercise name is. It was just amazing to go
there, fly with everybody, talk and chat with everybody, getting a lot of lessons learned. It was just amazing. - This sounds really cool. A real aviator get-together
down in Australia. Noble, thank you very much for touring us around your aircraft and your day here, and for you, you know the
deal, like and subscribe, and see you on the next one.
