Why are the Eurofighter’s wingtips different?
- By Paul Hoversten
- AirSpaceMag.com, September 05, 2012
The wingtop pods on a Typhoon contain sensors and radar decoys used for electronic defense.
Crown Copyright
Our July 2012 cover photo of the Eurofighter Typhoon caught the attention of John Bock of Silverton, Oregon. He wondered, after having heard stories about airplane parts falling from the sky—“things like engine cowlings and cargo doors”—whether the Typhoon photo captured the same sort of mishap in flight.
“Note the right wingtip tank,” Bock writes. “The rear cone is gone. Another piece of falling airplane parts scattered somewhere over Europe, or was that an intentionally misplaced part?”
For the answer, we turned to Royal Air Force Wing Commander Mark Quinn, who flies Europe’s frontline fighter-intercepter. Quinn assures us that nothing was amiss in the photo. All RAF aircraft, like other military or commercial aircraft, “have to conform with strict air worthiness criteria, to prevent…parts of the airframe from detaching during flight,” he writes in an email.
The difference in the wingtips, Quinn explains, “is a result of manufacture rather than structural failure. These pods are part of the aircraft’s defensive aids sub-system, which provides electronic defence. The pod on the right wing tip houses towed radar decoys. If [the wingtip had a cap and] they were deployed, the aerodynamic cap would indeed fall from the aircraft.” That’s why that end was designed to be cap-less or flat.
The pod on the left wingtip houses electronic sensors that remain on the aircraft, so the rear of that wingtip is covered with an aerodynamic cap, Quinn writes.
So the next time you hear about falling airplane parts, you can cross the Typhoon off the list of likely suspects.
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Comments (4)
The Supermarine seaplane racers have incredible speed. How did the areodynamics work with those two big pontoons out there in the wind stream? How could they go that fast?
Posted by Michael Weaver on September 13,2012 | 12:30 AM
Radar decoy being towed from a wingtip?
I wonder how the airplane would deal with that sort of aerodynamically imbalanced configuration if the decoy were to be deployed.
Posted by Keugyeol Bang on November 13,2012 | 08:47 PM
Concerning those pontoons, I've often wondered myself, here's a WAG; not as clean as retractable gear but being designed to flow through and lift the plane onto the surface of water, they are low in aerodynamic drag as well.
Posted by Kevin G on January 23,2013 | 06:57 AM
Regarding the Supermarine racers: small cross sections, a lot of airflow control, and lots of horsepower. All cooling was done with surface radiators (the wings were for coolant, the strips along the fuselage were cooling the oil going to and from the tail, which was the oil tank). The floats were the fuel tanks (very streamlined, as noted) which allowed for a very small fuselage profile and thin wings. And the engines were running an evil brew of chemicals for fuel, with a very short TBO (time between overhauls) of only a few hours.
These were truly amazing airplanes for their day, the SR-71 of the time.
Posted by Norm Samuelson on February 3,2013 | 01:54 PM