Nightstalker catches a dark RAF Typhoon at the instant a cloud of vapour closes around it, swallowing the airframe until little more than its outline shows against a flat grey sky.This is an original Marqforde photograph taken at the Royal International Air Tattoo, RAF Fairford, of the RAF Typhoon Display Team's black jet, known as Blackjack, pulling hard in front of the crowd on an overcast display day.About the aircraftThe shroud is condensation, not smoke. Air accelerating over the wings and canards drops in pressure and temperature, and in humid air that pushes it below the dew point. It appears in high-G turns well below Mach 1, so it is no sign of supersonic flight.The Typhoon's canard-delta layout is deliberately unstable, trading natural steadiness for agility. No pilot could fly it unaided, so four independent flight control computers, with no mechanical backup, correct it continuously, while carefree handling blocks any demand that would exceed structural or aerodynamic limits.Its roots lie in two British research aircraft. Jaguar XX765 flew on 20 October 1981 as the first aircraft with an all-digital quadruplex fly-by-wire system and no mechanical backup. The unstable EAP demonstrator followed on 8 August 1986, and both are now at the RAF Museum, Cosford.Quick facts Aircraft: Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, twin-engine canard-delta multirole fighter Flight controls: full-authority quadruplex digital fly-by-wire, no mechanical backup Performance: carefree handling cleared to 9g, which display pilots pull close to the ground Ancestry: Jaguar ACT XX765 (1981) and the EAP demonstrator (1986) Operator: RAF Typhoon Display Team, flying the black jet known as Blackjack Display context: high-G pass wrapped in condensation, Royal International Air Tattoo, RAF Fairford
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