Tunnock's tea cakes pass RAF flight test after '60-year ban'

Royal Air Force pilots could be able to enjoy a Tunnock’s tea cake at 30,000ft after a 60-year myth they explode was busted.

The Scottish snack was said to be a favourite of nuclear bomber pilots until an explosive decompression episode left airmen and their controls covered in marshmallow and chocolate.

The story goes that in 1965, while flying a training sortie, a captain and student forgot they had left unwrapped tea cakes on top of their instrument panel.

When the captain conducted an emergency training decompression, the sweet treats exploded, leading to the ban being introduced.

But an experiment at the RAF Centre of Aerospace Medicine has found the snacks did not explode when rapidly decompressed.

Tea cakes were placed in an altitude chamber and decompressed from 8,000ft to 25,000ft in three seconds.

While the marshmallow did escape from the chocolate casing, the cakes did not explode.

A second test took place where the snacks were frozen first, and this led to some of them only cracking and not expanding.

Dr Oliver Bird, a Medical Officer Instructor at the centre said: “I think the best advice is that the snacks are kept frozen and in their foil wrappings until pilots are ready to consume them.”

However, a senior RAF source told STV News they had “no idea” why pilots would have the snack in the cockpit, given it bursts under pressure.

They said: “The RAF has no information on the rumoured incident an explosion of confectionary on an aircraft and likewise has no record of this product being banned from our aircraft.

“The RAF is not aware of any ‘banned confectionary list’, given these products disintegrate when there are pressure changes, I have no idea why any aircrew would use them.”

The source, an experienced aviator who piloted Phantom and Tornado fighter jets, said: “We had a variety of products to eat on long missions: sandwiches, sausage rolls, crisps, fruit and biscuit based confectionary… but not Tunnock’s teacakes.”

The full experiment can be watched on the BFBS Forces News website.

Fergus Loudon, sales director at Tunnock’s, said: “If we really are talking about the people who fly our supersonic jet fighter bombers, then I’m inclined to think that Tunnock’s Tea Cakes wouldn’t be the highest thing on their list of worries.

“But I’m glad to hear that they can now enjoy them, like everybody else, with official approval.”