Use of afterburners

[Springer6]

Was persuaded to take the family to Lytham seafront, Lancashire, England, UK today.

I had forgotten, but the spot where we were eating our lunch was  about 1k from the  end of runway 26 of the British Aerospace factory at Warton (EGNO ) .

Suddenly a couple of Eurofighter Typhoons appeared climbing very steeply out of Warton out over the Irish sea, but parallel to us. From the crackling roar that they made , I am sure they were using afterburners. Although I could not see any flames, probably due to the bright sunshine.

I was under the impression that afterburner take offs are only normally used in an emergency or on operations ( it certainly shook this quiet seaside town and I can't imagine that this sound level would be tolerated on a continuing basis).

I suppose it could have been engine tests after repair/maintenance    
as Warton does this kind of work.

Does anyone have any comment?

[Craig.]

Burner takeoff's are common as far as i am aware. Charlie can give you a proper answer, but i believe its normal. Warton is one of Typhoons home bases, my dad works there every now and again so i'll have to ask him aswell. Its possible they were just doing a quick climb.

[C]

If they use burner routinely at Warton I imagine it would be in the same fashion as the Tornado whene the burner is normally disengaged soon after leaving the runway. Typhoon is so high powered I'd expect it to use similar operating procedures (otherwise unless it climbed very steeply it'd be supersonic in no time at all!). The EJ200 is a loud engine though, so I expect it was just using normal power, but it could have been reheat...

[Sytse]

well... Maybe it was an emergency.
Oooh! Goverment cover-up speculations! Jippeh!  :D

[Ivan]

[quote]well... Maybe it was an emergency.
Oooh! Goverment cover-up speculations! Jippeh!

[C]

Probably a broken radio or a dozy pilot...

Warton and dozy pilots don't go together!

[Craig.]

Warton and dozy pilots don't go together!

LMAO no commment

[Tom.]

If it was from warton it must have been the oeu after reading an article in aircraft illustrated i found out that the oeu will be using afterburners for evaluation but in squadron service they use dry power for takeoffs as using after burner for taking off could easily exeed the maximum gear down speed