Team Typhoon

Team Typhoon was a team made up of cadets of the 870 Squadron from the Air Training Corps who entered a number of different robots in Robot Wars. The aim of these machines was to raise interest in engineering among young cadets, with the various degrees of proficiency going in different weight categories: the least experienced would work on the featherweight, and the most experienced working on the heavyweight. The team's robots were all cone-shaped full-body spinners, painted to resemble the RAF crest and featured a heavy steel outer ring with four claw-shaped hammer cutters on the side. All were devastatingly powerful, able to cause very high levels of damage when spinning at full speed but were vulnerable at low speeds and none of them had a self-righting mechanism. The team had a heavyweight champion named Typhoon 2, three-time middleweight champion called Typhoon and a middleweight clusterbot named Typhoon Twins (which consisted of the team's lightweight champion, Typhoon Thunder, and its partner, Typhoon Lightning) and a featherweight called Typhoon Cadet.

On a side note, like many Robot Wars competitors, the Air Cadets also entered Robot Wars' sister show Techno Games, with Typhoon Rover, a small box shaped robot. Typhoon Rover won its event, The Assault Course, beating World Record breaker Mighty Mouse in the final. The team also entered the football event with Typhoon Rover and a modified Typhoon called Typhoon 870 which acted as the goalkeeper. They also competed in the Cycling competition with Byphoon.

Currently the team has built a new robot called Swarm which entered the 2006 UK Heavyweight Championships, but never entered the fight and was never seen again afterwards. Most recently, in March 2012, team member Gary Cairns purchased Robot Wars veteran S.M.I.D.S.Y. from Team Troublesome.

Team Rogue Two Robots built a featherweight replica of Typhoon Rover, called Bullseye, which is now in possession of Team Scar.

The Team
The various members of Team Typhoon were engineering students, whose proficiency level dictated the machine that they designed, built and fought with.


 * Typhoon & Typhoon 2: Flying Officer Peter Bennett, Corporal Gary Cairns and Cadet Hazel Taylor were the team that drove Typhoon in the Middleweight Melee in Extreme 1. Hazel was replaced by Sergeant Graeme Horne, who joined the team (that drove Typhoon and Typhoon 2) for Extreme 2 and Series 7.
 * Typhoon Twins: Neil Harrison, Alistair McLeod and Keri Scott drove Typhoon Twins, who faced Typhoon in the Extreme 2 Middleweight final.
 * Typhoon Thunder: Keri was alongside Martin Armistead and Amy Drinkwater in the team of Lightweight champion Typhoon Thunder.
 * Typhoon Cadet: Young female air cadets drove Typhoon Cadet in the Featherweight tournament of Series 7. They were never named on the televised competition, but Corporal Cairns stated that young female cadets were in charge of the team's featherweight.

Controversy
The team has been criticised by many fans for several reasons.

In the Middleweight Championship of Robot Wars Extreme 2, Team Typhoon was permitted 2 entries in the event (Typhoon and the clusterbot Typhoon Twins), despite the strictly enforced rule of one robot per weight class, per team. When these machines reached the final of the event, they both attacked and defeated each opposing team in a combination effort, before refusing to fight each other when they were the only robots left. The team stated unconvincingly that they planned to eliminate the others and then fight each other, but this did not sit well with the audience or roboteers.

The more controversial incident occurred in the Grand Final of Series 7 with Typhoon 2. In the battle with Storm 2, Typhoon 2 was repeatedly slammed around the arena by its opponent, until Typhoon 2's weapon struck the arena wall at full force, shattering one of the panels. While the battle was halted so that the arena wall could be repaired, Team Typhoon were permitted to repair the damage done to their robot, much to the dismay of the Storm 2 team. Before the fight resumed, the team were also allowed to get their weapon spinning up to full speed before activate was called, so as to allow the team to fend Storm 2 off easier (though Mentorn claimed it was to maintain continuity going back into the fight). Despite this, Storm 2 continued to slam Typhoon 2 around the arena, until the final seconds of the fight, where a small panel broke off of the front of Storm 2. The resulting judges' decision was rewarded to Typhoon 2 based on damage, much to the dismay of the Storm 2 team, with the crowd booing the decision to the extent that virtually the only people cheering were the Air Cadets in the crowd, resulting in Mentorn being forced to dub over the booing with cheers.

This decision is particularly controversial owing to the fact that Storm 2 was judged to have scored zero points for damage, which cost it the match. However, after the match one of the crew members who was in the arena found Typhoon 2's dislodged drive chains on the arena floor, thus proving that Storm 2's ramming had caused severe damage to Typhoon 2. The crew member offered to bring the chains up to the judges, but was rebuked. Owing to this, many fans and roboteers believe that Typhoon 2 was undeserving of its championship, with some calling for team captain Gary Cairns to hand his trophy over to the Storm 2 team.

Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 13
 * Losses: 4

Series Record

 * Series 1-4: Did not enter
 * Extreme 1: Middleweight Champions with Typhoon
 * Series 5: Did not enter
 * Series 6: Failed to qualify with Typhoon 2
 * Extreme 2: Middleweight Champions with Typhoon and Lightweight Champions with Typhoon Thunder
 * Series 7: Grand Champions with Typhoon 2 and Middleweight Champions with Typhoon