From October 5 to 16, the Eurofighter pilots of the Austrian Armed Forces will be training supersonic interception maneuvers. Two supersonic flights are scheduled per day between 8.00 am and 4.00 pm.
According to the Airspace Surveillance Command, the training is “indispensable for the functioning of Austrian airspace surveillance. It serves to ensure safe flight operations even during supersonic missions. The close and time-critical coordination between military pilots, radar control officers and military and civil air traffic control is the main purpose of the training. Furthermore, the pilots train under real physical stress, which cannot be simulated in the simulator.” Flights are flown over almost the entire federal territory with the exception of metropolitan areas and the federal states of Tyrol and Vorarlberg. The flight areas are determined in cooperation with civil air traffic control. In order to keep the noise level as low as possible, flights are flown at high altitudes. The supersonic speed starts at around 1,200 km/h. If a Eurofighter approaches this speed, shock waves are generated on the aircraft. These shock waves can be heard on the ground as a sonic boom. The (loud) strength of the sonic boom depends on the flight altitude, the terrain structure and the weather conditions, among other things.
