TYPHOON test pilot Steve Long says his job may be ‘cool’ — but it would be impossible without the highly-specialist knowledge that goes into building the aircraft’s foreplanes, the small wings on either side of the cockpit.

They are produced through the superplastic forming and diffusion bonding process undertaken by BAE and are central to the aircraft’s performance and agility.

But without the inspiration of generations of engineers the technology would not exist.

Steve said: “The Typhoon is a naturally unstable platform which is what gives it a real performance edge. One of the reasons it is so agile is due to the design of and the role played by the foreplanes. When I’m twisting ply andand turning through the sky, the aircraft is doing a lot of the work and allowing me to turn shar maintain a high degree of agility.

“Computer systems on board make rapid fine tuning adjustments to the foreplanes which can be adjusted up to 50 times a second while in flight. My brain could never think that quickly.”