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Old 12th Aug 2014, 20:00
  #5058 (permalink)  
John Farley

Do a Hover - it avoids G
 
Join Date: Oct 1999
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Sorry chaps

I should have said the first total losses due to technical failure.

I wouldn’t count poor Ludwig’s accident as a specific Tornado one.

As for open source references I don’t have any to hand but I believe they would not be hard to find. The Alpha Jet was in Egypt and the Typhoon of course in Spain.

More importantly, while I am no expert in all the reasons I have heard some very bright people talking about them and they revolve not just on the obvious two engines to fail but on the much more complicated installations involved with a twin when you have to be able to fly the aircraft on either engine (I believe the gearbox that links both engines on a Tornado for example absorbs some 300+ HP) plus the close proximity of the engines to each other where the bad donk can so easily damage the good one. (quite unlike the civvy twin case) .Since a lot of engine failures result from intake conditions a common intake for both engines can obviously lose you both (Spanish Typhoon).

Like I said there are lots of factors and I am sure I have not listed them all here.

In the case of the Harrier single engine installation we decided that the original very complex hydro-mechanical engine fuel control system was the single most likely cause of engine failure so a standby independent manual fuel system was incorporated (in the days before electronics and redundancy was available in that department).

The design of high performance military aircraft is not a simple matter with many compromises involved. The teams involved are not thick either. So those who pick simple holes in whatever issue is being discussed probably say more about themselves than the topic
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