RAF clear ‘exploding’ Tunnock’s teacakes to fly after 60 years

The story goes that 60 years in the past, Tunnock’s teacakes had been banned from RAF flights after a cockpit marshmallow explosion.

The chocolate-covered treats had been apparently all the trend, eaten by nuclear bomber crewmen on coaching sorties on the peak of the Chilly Conflict.

However in the summertime of 1965, a captain and pupil pilot forgot they’d positioned unwrapped teacakes above their instrument panels.

When the captain pulled an emergency depressurising change the long-lasting Scottish deal with erupted – leaving a sticky mess over the airmen, the devices and cockpit cover.

Now the RAF Centre of Aerospace Drugs has now given them the all-clear to fly once more, after checks in an altitude chamber discovered the teacakes didn’t explode.

The experiments had been coated by the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) on the centre primarily based at RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire.

First the teacakes had been put into an altitude chamber – usually used within the coaching of recent quick jet pilots – and had been lifted to eight,000ft, climbing at 4,000ft per minute,

They had been then quickly decompressed to 25,000ft in three seconds to see if they’d blow up.

As air strain within the chamber decreased, the air contained in the teacakes expanded till the chocolate cracked and the mallow filling puffed out.

BFBS reporter Hannah King, who witnessed the checks, mentioned whereas the mallow escaped from the chocolate casing, they “didn’t seem to blow up and trigger a threat to in-flight security”.

It was additionally found that once they had been frozen earlier than being positioned within the chamber, their hardened shells had been extra resilient to cracking at altitude.

Pilots have been provided some recommendation by Dr Oliver Hen, an teacher on the RAF Centre of Aerospace Drugs, who carried out the checks.

“The perfect recommendation is that the snacks are stored frozen and of their foil wrappings till pilots are able to eat them,” he mentioned.

Fergus Loudon, gross sales director at Tunnock’s, which relies in Uddingston, close to Glasgow, mentioned: “If we actually are speaking concerning the individuals who fly our supersonic jet fighter bombers, then I am inclined to suppose that Tunnock’s Tea Muffins would not be the very best factor on their listing of worries, however I am glad to listen to that they’ll now take pleasure in them, like everyone else, with official approval.”

An RAF spokesman mentioned he was not conscious of any “banned confectionary listing”, including that the checks weren’t carried out in an official capability.