American Reacts to the Panavia Tornado MRCA | Royal Air Force 🇬🇧✈️ 

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The vulcan was retired in early 80s. The Tornado replaced it. The Tornado (and the buccaneer before it) were famous for their low level prowess. I remember being in the air cadets as a teenager climbing a mountain in Scotland. We heard fast jets and most of our group looked up. My friend and I looked down, and some 4 or 5 hundred feet below us were 2 Tornados, at VERY low level in the Glen below us. The Nav in the second ship waved at us as they passed. About 20 minutes later they came back down the glen slightly higher and slower, and we got more waves from both crews, before the opened up the engines, pulled up and swept the wings back as they climbed. Epic memory.

I love the tornado as it kept my cousin safe. She was one of the handful of female Tornado pilots and flew the F3 fighter variant

When you're stood on top of a fell in the Dale's, or Lakes, and these guys fly below you, it's one of the most amazing experiences in the world...

The company I work for designed and produced the primary flight control actuators for the Tornado. When it retired from the RAF it did a fly past of our factory and set of all the car alarms. 😀

MRCA = Multi Role Combat Aircraft. Our first collaboration was the Anglo French SEPCAT Jaguar in service 1974 - 2007, Then the multi national Tornado 1982 - 2019 as seen here, as well as the multinational Eurofighter Typhoon 2007 - and the F-35 B of which we are a collaborator and major component supplier. The Royal Navy have the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) which as the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) flew aircraft from carriers as far back as WW1. They became known as the FAA under RAF control in the 1930's, a point of great controversy, until they where returned to the control of the Admiralty in WW2 They also developed and flew Sea Harriers as specific fighter planes whilst the RAF flew different variants as ground attack aircraft. Loved the opening sketch !

During the Gulf war the Tornado was used for low level bombing, flying thought the dunes. Planes frequently returned from missions with paint missing from the undersides where they had been abraded by sand.

That green arrow on the side of the fuselage is the marking for 12 Squadron RAF. The swing wing was invented by Barnes Wallace, the man who gave us the Bouncing bomb which 617 Sqn used against the Ruhr dams in WW2.

As I remember, Operation Grandby was the UKs support operation for Operation Desert Storm. As an MoD photographer, every morning I would receive the previous days FLIR footage from the laser guided weapons system, edit them, and send them to Downing Street for 5hat mornings COBRA meeting. Interesting days for a young photographer.

“It’s fun to stay at the MRCA….” The guy spoke about Dunmail Raise, a pass in the Lake District, then they obviously flew east through the Yorkshire Dales. I was on the summit of The Old Man of Coniston in the Lakes one winter and we watched a Tornado fly up from below us in the valley to pass very low over the summit. And while climbing in the Italian Dolomites I met a former Tornado pilot who flew them in the first gulf conflict and I asked if it was true they flew across the desert at 400mph at an altitude of thirty feet. “Nah”, he said, “it was about twenty feet lower than that…..” He gave me a lift in his tiny rented Fiat, but he drove it like it was a Tornado, flinging it into turns at the very last moment at high speed and yelling that it was ‘gutless!’.

The Fox badge on the Tornado is 12 Squadron. Dating from when they used the Fairey Fox biplane in the early 1930s, then the fastest 'plane in RAF service. When 12 Sqn. used Blackburn Buccaneers, I saw that each fox-head badge was different: eyes winking, as 'x's meaning 'knocked out', as RAF roundels, with a tongue lolling out of the side of the mouth, etc.

"Desert Pink" has an interesting history. It started with the SAS when they discovered that pink was the best colour to paint their Land Rovers (Pink Panthers) as they conducted guerrilla raids in North Africa and the Middle East. Pink Land Rovers: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mOiKjBCOoP0.html Birth of the SAS: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AyRFd8ZIUug.html

OMG, you looked like "Ace Rimmer" from Red Dwarf. lol

The first time I saw a Tornado was when I was a kid on vacation in Wales. My family and I were getting ready to leave the Inn/Hotel and a pair them flew just overhead loud and fast - startled the hell out of me. I want to give major props to the Tornado crews - the majority of the Coalition aircraft that were downed during Desert Storm early on (I Thnik) were Tornados that were using some special anti-runway ordinance that only the Tornado could carry. If I recall correctly it required them to fly straight at a slower speed in order to deploy the munitions that would make the runways unusable. Willingly having to fly like that knowing you are going to be an easier target to the enemy - I salute those guys. As far as countries like Denmark, Belgium, and Holland dropping out of the Tornado program, it would totally not surprise me if General Dynamics approached them on the down low and offered to sell them the F-16 Falcon instead.

There is a great story of a Tornado that was participating in Red Flag out of Nellis AFB during the late 80's. During an exercise, one of our 'Tonkas' had to make an emergency landing into Tonopah Test and Training Range Airport...... if you want to find out what happened next it is worth a Google. I loved the 'Flying Flick Knife', shame it's time came up. I live right next to RAF Lakenheath and Mildenhall so am more used to seeing USAF assets even though I live in the UK. Also my avatar is of the Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, great bit of kit and was conceived pretty much the same way as Tornado with a multi-national consortium. Great video and your passion for learning is refreshing.

camping in scotland as a mid teen (some time ago now) i had one of my best memories. waking up and getting out of my tent i noticed mid stretch a shape coming towards the camp no higher than 100 ft or so above ground. it was awsome to see it zip past overhead with no apparent sound, until a moment or so later the heavens exploded with a tremendous roar. the hilarious moment a poor camper who was in the middle of hanging some washing on a make-shift line was taken completely by surprise and tossed what was left in her hands into the air and rushed for cover. it was just another routine flight training amongst the hills of glen coe scotland in a F2 tornado. it got even better when my uncle took us all to the hills and we watched F4 phantoms formation flying BELOW us in the valleys. eat your heart out farnborough you have nothing on glen coe or lake district 😋

I used to work on the Tonkas at RAF St Athan at the maintenance unit there. Lots of rewiring and cable protection need as it had many miles of kapton insulated wires (partly to save weight) which were susceptible to a phenomena known as arc tracking. Also there were a number had to be scrapped due to some untrained car mechanics being let loose on them and cutting through one of the main supports with cengar saws!!!

I enjoyed the opening sketch. I remember the Tornadoes being name-dropped on the news during the Kosovo war and the 2003 Iraq war, though they obviously go back long before that! The pictures are from the Duxford air branch of the Imperial War Museums near Cambridge, which I would highly recommend (there's also a section there devoted to the US Air Force, a tank section and it's near an excellent computer museum).

I regularly go to a Welsh town called Machynellth in Powys to spend my holidays and used to go visiting other places in the area. This was just inside what is known as The Mach Loop and is one of several low level training areas used by not only the RAF but by the U.K. stationed USAF. We used to get buzzed by Tornadoes flying over our heads at no more than a couple of hundred feet, the noise they made was incredible but not as loud as the F15E Strike Eagles, who seemed to like having their reheats (afterburners) on all the time.

RAF Tornado produced from 1979 - 1998 , its actual first flight was in 1974 this was the pre-production or test flights you might say.

I worked in the Tornado project office in the late 80s, developing improved FLIR for the GR4. FLIR is Forward Looking Infra Red, which was an advanced targeting system for the ground attack armaments. The Tornado was 2 generations removed from the Vulcan, which was an out and out strategic heavy bomber. The Tornado had two main variants: an interdictor strike aircraft (IDS) and an air defence variant (ADV). Yes, Mach number is speed relative to sound, so Mach 1 is the speed of sound. The speed of sound changes with temperature and pressure. The point of having variable geometry wings is to improve performance at both low and high speeds, changing the flight dynamics to essentially a delta wing for high speed and supersonic flight. There were many aircraft of that era that performed this feat, including American multi role aircraft like the F-14 and F-111, and the B-1B bomber. These days, it’s not necessary because manoeuvrability across a wide range of Mach numbers can be achieved by using fixed delta wings, canards and sophisticated flight control computers.

5:12 Yes this is surprising when you first learn it, but there are lots of examples. The UK let the US build its own Hawker Harrier, the UK and US collaborated on the F-35 Lightning II which recently entered service, and in naval circles the UK is now building Type 26 frigates with Canada and Australia, while the new US Constellation-class frigate is actually a Franco-Italian design that the US has bought under licence. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FREMM_multipurpose_frigate 16:11 No, that's the Yorkshire Dales in England. 17:32 The Eurofighter Typhoon was supposed to be a UK-German-French-Italian-Spanish project, but the French pulled out and did their own thing (like they did with the Tornado). It is in use today by all the countries I mentioned and some others. Nothing to do with the EU. 18:12 Like the US, the Royal Navy has its own planes (the Fleet Air Arm) separate to the RAF. Currently British carriers fly the F-35 Lightning II fighter which was developed jointly with the US.

The Royal Navy has a fleet air arm. This has existed since 1928. It is one of the most elite and prestigious airborne branches in the world. Though currently they only operate rotary wing aircraft since the retirement of the harrier, 2 squadrons are to be equipped with F35B Lighting 2 STOVL aircraft.

As a low level aircraft they used to practice in the Lake District. Strange standing at the top of a mountain, looking down and seeing a Tornado zoom past below you..

Have seen loads of these low flying. I was in Windermere once on a hill and one flew below me on its side. Quite a shock.

Brilliant 😂 - I can remember climbing up one of the rock formations at Brimham Rocks in North Yorkshire at the end of Autumn; because of the time of year there weren't many people there, so we pretty much had the entire valley to ourselves - and a front seat view as it were to 2 pairs of RAF tornado's that were flying training 'runs' up the valley... Spectacular! And very very loud! 😂😂😂👍👍👍 - oh, and the Yorkshire Dales are in the North of England btw... (Felt the need to point this out as I'm a Yorkshire lad! 😊👍😂) love your vids btw, great content 😊👍🇬🇧🇺🇸

I used to refuel them :). Multi Roll Combat Aircraft Or, as the Americans call them: Swing Wing.

I’m from Preston Lancashire where the Tornado’s were manufactured, my ex worked for BAC at the time. The test pilots took the Tornado’s out every day weather permitting, you could barely hear them coming towards you but you were deafened and shook as they got over you and passed you. Those pilot’s surely earned their pay as they had to report back every little niggle to ensure the plane was fully air worthy and combat ready.

When I was growing up my grandparent had a hotel and one of his permanent residents worked for Rolls Royce and he was training up the ground crews on how to service the engines when the Tornado was first deployed at RAF Honington . Because of this man I got all the posters and keyrings and a few other items given to me which was all used for promoting the Tornado and I still got them in good condition in a safe place. I even got to see the flyby of the Tornado going over RAF Honington in 2019 on its retirement tour and in a way I sort of miss that plane now being as I live in an area where most of the planes flying are military planes from the RAF and USAF airbases

Loved the skit, in the same way when your kid draws something and you stick it on the fridge. Not flawless, still priceless.

My best memory of the Tonka, has to be when I was driving along one of the streets at the high point of Wallasey/Liscard, while there was a show on at New Brighton. When the earth shook and a Tornado went past upside down at eye level with the Nav waving at us. For anyone that knows the hills there, they aint big, so it must have only been 10m above the rooftops.

Fantastic reaction. I remember this test flying near Preston, Lancashire & over Cumbria where I live, thanks SoGal 👍

When he was talking about Dunmail Raise, this is a pass between mountains in the Lake District in northern England. It is commonly used for training in low flying by the RAF (and, I think, the USAF based in Britain, too). I remember once being on the summit of Helm Crag, which is above Dunmail Raise, and seeing a succession of planes flying along the valley, below me. The Yorkshire Dales are also in northern England, east and south-east from the Lake District, and is also an area of hills and valleys (the dales themselves, a dale is a valley).

The Tornado GR1 carried unguided weapons as it was designed for ultra low level flying to take out Warsaw Pact targets, one of which was their runways at their air bases in East Germany, hence what the JP233 was designed for and it was used successfully in the Gulf War. The weapon wasn't used after 1991, and was retired from service in 1998 because of the UK banning antipersonnel landmines. In it's nuclear role in West Germany, the Tornado was armed with the WE177B thermonuclear bomb with a 500 kiloton yield.

Mach 2.2 does sound fast, you're right; the F3's top speed was about 1,500 MPH. Closest parallel in the USAF was the F-15D, a much more expensive and MUCH larger aircraft. Initially, the Eagle had a fairly large edge over the Tornado in terms of A2A performance, but the F-15s at Lakenheath would often engage in dogfight practice with Conningsby's Tornadoes, and in later years, the RAF had achieved Win/Loss parity with their more expensive American counterparts.

When I was about 15 or 16 years old, I went on a holiday arranged by my local civic council to the south-west area of Holland. As a part of the holiday we were taken out of Holland and into West Germany to visit an RAF base and amongst other things we were escorted to one of the hardened hangers, which was the accommodation of a pair of Tornadoes. The group of us were allowed to climb up to the cockpit for a close but hands off inspection then a pilot came and sat in his “office “as the pilots refer to their cockpit. He proceeded to show us some of the functions of the controls and switches and then he consulted some figures written on a plastic panel on the leg of his flying suit, then he input the number’s to his on-board computer and he did the same with some figures painted on the wall of the hanger. He then said take a look at this and pointed to a small circular display screen and pressed a button. The screen lit up and showed a map of the airfield with the crosshairs on the hanger that we were in, then he said to look again and pressed another button, the screen started to roll then settled down and we could clearly see the crosshairs indicating the front steps of our town hall. All of this was on a screen about 5 inches across. Once we had all seen that, we were taken out to the taxi way and lined up along it , then the plane rolled out of the hanger and came to a standstill beside us. He then set the brakes and ran the engines up to the point that the brakes were only just keeping it in place then throttled back to the point where we could hear the officer who was escorting us who then returned us to our vehicles and just as we were about to get onboard the plane flew at low level directly overhead as a goodbye.

I love the opening, and the top gun top 🤣. The weird alien eyes are making me laugh as well haha.

If you're interested in military aircraft you should do a search for videos of the Mach Loop in Wales. Lots of them on RU-vid showing various planes from various counties doing low level flying practice.

Omg that skit at the start was hilarious, you should do a reaction to the Eurofighter Typhoon, an in incredible dog fighter that is purposefully designed to be non-aerodynamic so it can make incredible manoeuvres, it relies on a number of computers to handle the control surfaces to keep the craft aloft. It’s not a long=g distance strike fighter, but a defensive one thar can out-manoeuvre most other craft.

Oh SoGal, you really should do the Buccaneer! It's service from the mid to late 50's(!) to 1994 is nothing short of legendary! The Tornado was a great ground following plane, but it couldn't have done it without the earlier Bucc! Will also help you out with your history of British naval aviation, as they started out with the Fleet Air Arm. And remember, towards the end of their life, there was "Granny's Finest Hour" in the first gulf war, where Buccaneers were supposed to do target marking for Tornadoes, but ended up doing a lot of the heavy work itself - especially bridge killing! Yes, a truly fine aircraft that is worthy of an assessment by you. Greetings from me, Bob, by the way.

At 20 °C (68 °F), the speed of sound in air is about 343 metres per second (1,125 ft/s; 1,235 km/h; 767 mph; 667 kn), or one kilometre in 2.9 s or one mile in 4.7 s. So Mach 2.2 is 1687mph or 2.2 X the speed of sound

I had 4 Tornados fly right past me when I was half way up Ben Lomond in Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 they came right up Loch Lomond with 2 Hercules Transporters we waved to the pilots of the Hercules who waved back then we heard the roar of the Tornados and before we could look at each other they were gone what a plane they were .

The green arrow you asked about is part of the squadron marking. I was not sure myself which squadron untill the camera caught the fox on the tail fin which is the squadron logo for Number 12 squadron

Having lived under the flight path of R.A.F. Coningsby for two years` I can safely say they are very fast and very loud .... the runway is about quarter of a mile long ... you would see a bright light` and before you could even move .. you would feel a warm glow` as a Tornado flew over you .... you never got to hear them until they had gone past you. The pilots called them a " bucket of bolts " .. but they are a great aircraft.

The concept of Variable Sweep wings was first proposed by Barnes Wallis of "Bouncing Bomb (Dambusters) fame. The UK MOD were not interested but it was developed in the USA into an aircraft concept that became the F 111.

You should take a look at the Buccaneer now that together with the English Electric Lightning and Harrier were some of the last true British Planes. The Buccaneer is legendary for it's Red Flag appearances where it somewhat upset the local US boys ;)

2nd fun fact, Ewan (Obi-wan Kenobi) McGregor's older brother Colin was a Tornado pilot & his call sign was Obi-two

Can't tell if that jacket makes you look more like a jet pilot or someone who got caught up in a fight with a trashcan haha, I love it, it certainly was unexpected

I remember seeing a Tornado at an airshow once and it set all the car alarms off. Also the RAF regularly do exercises near where I live so I get to see/hear them every now and again. Just last year, the Swiss where doing exercises off the coast and they broke the sound barrier which made me think there was an earthquake because my whole house shook. And the place the chief designer mentions is the Yorkshire Dales which is along the Pennines in North Yorkshire. Highly recommend visiting if you ever go on holiday to the UK.

Very amusing intro, nicely put together too 👍🏻

Hilarious opening, brilliant cosplay! You are truly great, SoGal!

The terrain following of the Tornado was glanced over: Imagine being in an aircraft at 100ft (or lower) while going really fast and the plane keeps the height no matter what. This was to try to get below radar. As for the Eurofighter Typhoon: This was, like the Tornado a cooperation between countries/companies this time between the germans, italians, spanish and british. At first even the french, but they stepped out early and made their own one. It had a few names in early devellopment before it settled on Eurofighter. (first flight was in the 80's) For potential sales outside of europe the name Typhoon was added. Oh and Mach is the speed of sound. Named after austrian physicist Ernst Mach.

The Royal Navy does have aircraft, they are called the Fleet Air Arm. They have played a vital role in many different conflicts. Something worth a further look.

My fondest memory is s Gr.4 doing low passes over us in the carpark at an airshow many moons ago. It went verticle directly above us, full chat for a breif moment, i remember feeling the change in temperature from the afterburners 😂 many car alarms went off.

I'm sure other people have mentioned by now, but the AIM-9 Sidewinder family are short-ranged fire-and-forget infrared "heat-seeking" missiles. Short ranged, good for self-defence and better for use against armoured combat helicopters than beyond visual range RADAR-guided missiles and their lighter proximity warheads.

What an intro! Now I've seen the lights reflecting in your glasses, I can't unsee them....

Very famously early Fighter variants were fitted with Blue Circle radar AKA a block of cement in the front. This was because the radar that was supposed to be fitted wasn't ready so they had to add ballast(Blue Circle being a brand of cement)

SG, the abbreviation, MRCA stands foir Multi Role Combat Aircraft, ergo, it can be adapted as a Fighter, Fighter-Bomber rather than just one or the other; tho' developed in the 1970's, it saw active service mostly during the 1980's onward; the "Eurofighter" as you correctly assert is another conglomeration of different European nations inputting a consensual design concept that can be used by many different countries, & in terms of the cost-benefit ratio, makes the aircraft more affordable to each individual European state. In answer to your question about Naval aircraft, well, yes, in the Second World War, The Fleet Air Arm flew from Aircraft Carriers, as well as land based aerodromes, & that still continues to this day. Might I suggest a presentation on the Hawker Siddeley Harrier, & it's naval counterpart, the Sea Harrier, which entered service in 1969, & was only retired back in 2006; a vertical take off & landing aircraft, it was (also) employed by your own USMC.....fundamentally, the American F35 has superceded this type of aircraft.... Thank you for the video, Andrew 🙂

Great video. I loved that opening ! 🙂👍🙂

When the development of the Tornado was delayed by political infighting between the various countries involved, in the RAF it was said that "MRCA" stood for "Must Refurbish Canberra Again".

I worked in the Central Design and Management Team (CDMT) which was responsible for the design and testing of the avionics software of the Tornado GR1 in the mid 70s....The team I was in defined the algorithms for the avionics which were then implemented by a separate software programming team. We then were responsible for testing that the implementation was correct. It may surprise you to know that the main avionic computer for all the weapon delivery suite had a memory capacity of....16K. Initial testing of the software in a live airframe was undertaken using two Buccaneer aircraft fitted with the full avionic suite, whilst the Tornado aircraft were still being built. The Buccaneers were equipped with telemetry and the data from the avionics suite was all recorded. We took the recordings, fed the time frame by time frame data into a separate implementation of the software algorithms and then could compare at each time frame the computations of the avionics suite with the computations performed in our software implementation to make sure everything worked. Very advanced for the 19070s!

The Eurofighter is the typhoon and it was put together by the same countries as the tornado plus Spain. I was lucky enough to work on both types of tornado during my time in the RAF

The Green Arrow on the side of the GR4 is a squadron marking for 12 Squadron RAF, we employ various markings around the roundels on the sides of aircraft to identify it's squadron along with tail markings. They often have bars on each side of the roundel with different colours and designs to differentiate each squadron, some squadrons have used arrow designs from time to time and 111 squadron has used a lightning strike logo on their Tornado F.3's in the past.

Great video - I really loved the beginning. 😁 xx

I had an airfix model of this aircraft back in 1976 before it was called a Tornado, also had an F14A Tomcat - both fantastic designs.

You may have noticed that we collaborated with Germany and Italy on the Tornado, how things change from the events in WW2 that we have been looking at recently. The new Typhoon is a collaboration between UK, Germany, Italy and Spain as well. They are built as collaborations because of the cost.

The AIM-9 Sidewinder, is a close range air to air heat seeking missile, designed during the cold war, just before the Vietnam War. it's still in service today across both the The US Air Force, US Navy, and US Marine Corps as the AIM-9X

If you want another aircraft to react to have a look into the Blackburn Buccaneer, the predecessor to the Tornado and arguably a better aircraft. The Buccaneer was designed as a maritime low level strike aircraft to sink Soviet fleets with tactical nuclear bombs, but they got moved to the ground attack role in the 1980s when the UK scrapped its catapult launch aircraft carriers. The Buccaneer fought in GW1, being able to carry a laser designation pod and a pair of 500lb bombs, plus the required fuel to get there and back without refuelling, whereas the tornados needed refuelling twice at least. Pilots have said the Tornado was a good weapons platform, but the Buccaneer was a great plane to fly as a pilot. You can do stuff in a Buccaneer that you could never do in a Tornado.

Great cameo performance by Charlie from ‘Top Gun’ at the beginning, although I didn’t know she had lasers for eyes!!😂

In 1979I moved to a farm that was right next to RAF Marham, at that time it was a relatively quiet RAF base and there was no indication of what was to come as it was secret. But in 1980 they started to build the concrete hangars for the Tornadoes. I lived on that farm until 2000 and saw all the Tornado activity and came to recognise what they were doing from the noise they were making. When they first arrived on base the Tornadoes did not have the forward looking radar as it was not fully developed so the nose cone had a block of concrete in it to balance the plane, the joke among the RAF personnel was that if it came to war they would ram the enemy. Marham was also the base that had the officer in charge of air display and the Vulcan would come and practice its displays over the airfield so I would get to watch that several time a year.

Roland Beamont, who comments in this video, was a British fighter pilot for the Royal Air Force and an experimental test pilot during and after the Second World War. During the War, he flew more than five hundred operational sorties, and during his subsequent career as English Electric Aviation chief test pilot (and later for BAC), he directed the flight test programmes of the Canberra, the Lightning, and TSR-2, making the maiden flight of each type. When he retired from test flying in 1968, he had flown 167 different types of aircraft.

believe the 'logo' is the squadron insignia. Incidentally nice intro. Great acting and special effects.😀 .

Aim-9 sidewinder is a family of air to air missiles. The dales are in Yorkshire not Scotland The Fleet Air Arm operates the F35B lightning off our 2 carriers. The typhoon is another pan-European design,similar to how tornado was designed.

I remember being in southern Italy at Gioa Del colle air base when the Tornados were bombing Libya (Op Ellamy). The runway was quite a short runway and they were loaded up to the max with arsenal and fuel. The Tornados would sit at the start of the runway on full reheat for about a minute or so before letting off the brakes and I would be sat a couple of hundred feet away watching them. They are so ridiculously loud you could feel the engines rippling your chest like it was giving you a full X-ray of your chest cavity. We had one of them with a hydraulic failure and they had to catch it in these arrester nets as they had no flaps due to no hydraulics so they were landing at tremendous speeds compared to normal. They would go from a couple of hundred knots down to 0 in a few seconds. I watched it from inside the TMV (Trauma Management Vehicle) AKA an ambulance! Couldn't believe how quickly it came to a halt!

Used to see Tornado's on an almost daily basis. When RAF Leuchars (Scotland) was still a full RAF base..Tornados and other aircraft flew over our home when they were on course to the base. Now no longer...such a shame. Still get the odd Eurofighter (Typhoon) fly over...It's mainly helicopters now, Merlins, Chinnocks, Apache Longbows,...but not such a regular thing. Another aircraft you might like to check out is the Blackburn Buccaneer. An old bird....but a goodie. I recall hearing about airforce exercise in the US....might have been apart of the Red Flag series. Where US and UK aircraft fly against each other in mock combat. The story was that the UK sent a unit of Buccaneers to take part. The US pilots laughed at it because it was such an old aircraft compared to what the US were using. But during a particular exercise...the US were flying low level attack.. some 100 ft or so above the ground....but failed to notice that RAF Buccaneers which were flying BELOW them.

The imperial war museum is a must to visit. My grandad used to take me to the museum at the weekends in the summer just loved the place and it’s full of history. This made me want to join the Army when I left school. Great video 👍

The Tornado project was started in 1968 and was a collaboration between the UK, West Germany and Italy. A special consortium was set up known as PANAVIA and the planes were built and assembled in the various countries involved. It was originally known as the MRCA (the Multi Role Combat Aircraft) although it was primarilly a low level; bomber. However, eventually it did evolve into various Multi-Rolls and a specific fighter version known as the F2/F3 came about in the early 1980s. The name "Tornado" was allocated in 1974. The video is wrong in stating that the RAF was the only operator of the F3 fighter variant as the Italians and Saudis also flew some for a while. When the Tornado GR1 first entered service with the RAF, it was painted in a grey green camouflage scheme. The pink schemes were applied temporarilly during Gulf War 1 and they eventually were repainted in the rather dull all over grey scheme seen on the Tornado preserved at Duxford. The Green arrow logo is the Squadron insignia.

I'm so old I can remember this being flown as a prototype and have now seen it retire, and if you want a really long service aircraft to look at then go no further that your own nations B52, there is a family that's had a Grandad, Son and then Grandson who have all flown that type in combat, Vietnam, Gulf wars 1 and 2 and there are lots of consortium aircraft designs right up to the current F-35 Oh and he's wrong about the dedicated fighter version only being flown by the RAF, the Saudis and the Italians flew the dedicated fighter version as well. Oh and the Green around the roundel is just some for of squadron insignia

Dunmail Rise is just South of Keswick in the Lake District, and along Thirlmere towards Windermere.

3:25 As he said, the RAF retired the Tornado in 2019, but some of the other Operators still use it. The german Marineflieger (Naval Aviation Command) retired it in 2005, but the german Luftwaffe (Air Force) plans to use them until 2030. The Italian Aeronautica Militare was still using them in 2018 (not sure about now) as was the Royal Saudi Air Force.

😀 brilliant intro Flight Commander SoGal ... when you eventually get to walk in the Lake District / Yorkshire Dales you might be lucky enough to look down on the Euro Fighter as one goes past, occasionally you'll see it before you hear it ! ... I worked on Tornado weapon systems towards the end of its life, you'd have loved it, with your interest in pyrotechnics ... great video

A sidewinder is an Air-to-Air Missile, it's a so called "fire and forget" weapon, so there's no control once fired. It's controled internally by an IR/UV seeker, whcih works really good at finding hot spots, like aircraft engines. Due to the way it works it's relatively short range so usually carried for defensive purposes.

Yes. The Royal Navy have the Fleet Air Arm. I have a friend who lost her husband in the first Gulf war when his Tornado crashed.

The mention of "Hard RIde" at 15:30 refers to the terrain following radar, "Soft" spots hill / mountain in the distance and takes the aircraft up to go over it and eventualy brings it back down again. "Medium" waits untill the aircraft is aproaching the hill / mountain before going up, over, and down the other side. "Hard" waits until the last second to pull up hard with max G force, only just clear the top, and then pull down the other side equaly hard ! I was at a talk many years ago by a pair of F111 pilots, they amusingly described "Hard" as flying up to the mountain, through it, and out the other side lol There realy is a 3 position switch labled soft, medium, and hard !

The Royal Navy does indeed fly aircraft (“the fleet air arm”). Currently it operates two aircraft carriers (HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales) and one carrier strike group (UKCSG). The fleet air arm operated F-35 jets and various helicopers (Apache, Wildcat, Merlin). The RAF also operates carrier based F-35 jets along aide the fleet air arm.

The design around the roundel is the squadron identification marking. This one represents No 27 Squadron RAF Marham.

I worked on TONKA'S for few years at RAF ST. Athan.. S. Wales on 78 squadron.. Big old chunky lumps... Enjoyed it, used to love how your entire body vibrated when they were taking off! 💪🏻❤️

Sidewinder or AIM9 (Air Interdiction Missile) was American! He was talking about low flying in the Yorkshire Dales, northern England near to where I live. The Fleet Air Arm is the flying part of the Royal Navy.

When a tornado lights the afterburner on the runway at an airshow, everything rumbles, car alarms go off.. It was so loud, a brutal aircraft... I used to make parts for these... Mach 2.2 is about 1500 mph 😎

MRCA is Multi Role Combat Aircraft. Just under 1000 Tornados, of all the variants, were built and flown by the Air Forces of UK, Germany, Italy and Saudi Arabia. It has been estimated that Tornados flew over 1 million operational hours.

The Camo , Ergo Desert Pink was initially called Mountbatten Pink, invented/used during the second World War, it was originally used in the Royal Navy on ships, at a certain time of day it would render the ships somewhat invisible, it wasn't used much with the Royal Navy but it found it's way into the Airforce (some Spitfires were painted pink) again the colour made it hard to spot. It was also adopted by the SAS in the Desert again the colour would render the Jeeps somewhat invisible/harder to see, those Jeeps (Landrovers of the SAS) were nicknamed Pink Panthers. A highly effective colour for Camouflage .

He said that it retired in 2019, the Typhoon took over the role in 1994. The Tornado came into service the same year the Vulcan left service, though they may have flown together at airshows when the sole Vulcan had been restored, this was based 4 miles from where I live, a fighter/bomber the Buccaneer would have flown with the V Bombers and in particular the Vulcan, take a look at the Buccaneer, it could evade enemies by flying at high speed just 10 feet off the ground, it also could be armed with nuclear weapons, I have a story about something that happened while flying with Vulcans in "war games" with the US. The pink desert camouflage mentioned for the Tornadoes, the RAF used this in ww2 on reconnaissance spitfires, the underside is pink, this is because in the early morning or evening the sky has a reddish pink colour and so painting the underside of a plane pink makes it difficult to see, this is only done for a few planes but possibly more during Iraq war.

The RAF originally received 228 Tornado GR1s from 1979 and upgraded 142 of these to GR4 spec from 1994-2003 along with 30 GR4As (reconnaissance variant) which included 16 new builds. The RAF received 170 Tornado F3s from 1987-1993, a fighter version originally designed to shoot down Soviet bombers. The Tornado is still in use with the airforces of Germany, Italy and Saudi Arabia.

The AIM-9 Sidewinder is a supersonic, heat-seeking, air-to-air missile carried by fighter aircraft. It has a high-explosive warhead and an infrared heat-seeking guidance system. The Sidewinder was developed by the U.S. Navy for fleet air defense and was adapted by the U.S. Air Force for fighter aircraft use. Early versions of the missile were extensively used in the Southeast Asia conflict.

FYI - I used to work in a factory making parts for this plane !!

The Sidewinder was developed in The US in the fifties. It was the first air to air missile using the heat from the targets engines to seek its target just like the Sidewinder snake uses heat to seek its prey. MRCA = Multi Role Combat Aircraft He also mentioned TSR2, this was an aircraft project which although the aircraft was successfully flown and was in advance of everything. The new Labour government at the time decided we couldn't afford the cost.

I loved your introduction sequence. You look VERY COOL as a Top Gun instructor! The Royal Navy has two aircraft carriers and they've been grumpy for some years now since the government sold their Harriers to the US Marines and left them without any aircraft. Plenty of great helicopters but no aircraft. They managed to get the government to build them two aircraft carriers and then they (shock! horror!) discovered they had no aircraft to operate from them. Finally after decades of to-ing and fro-ing they're outfitting the RN with some F35-B - the short takeoff/ vertical landing (STOVL) version, so the RN is smiling again. (I'm not sure who's owning the F35Bs - the RN or the RAF but they're definitely operating from the two carriers.) The Eurofighter is another consortium job. Military aircraft, especially latest generation fighter aircraft are so expensive these days and with such a long development cycle, it's not practical for everyone to be building their own planes any more, the way they did back in the 1940s. Not even the USA wants to do that any more. Instead they club together and pool their resources with other non-adversary countries to share the cost and workload of developing all the new technology that's required if they don't want the shiny new jets blasted out of the air as soon as they take to the skies.

During the Gulf war an Italian Tornado was shoot down during one of the fist bombing missions. Due to bad weather it was the only plane that managed to complete the in air refuel and therefore the only one that could continue to the target. The crew managed to complete the attack but they were shoot down by anti-aircraft guns, due to their proximity to the ground right after the dropping of the bombs. They survived the crash but they were taken prisoners by the Iraqi forces. Eventually they made their way back home mostly fine (probably plus or minus some tortures based on some images that I remember seeing of them during their captivity).

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a youngster I used to go to the Biggin Hill Air Show on the outskirts of south London with my parents and siblings. The best place to experience the thrill of fast jets was in the small field outside the airfield perimeter at the start of the runway where you would have all manner of famous aircraft passing just tens of feet above your head. The memories of having a Tornado going over at what felt like touching distance with its wings swept back and afterburner full on for a fast pass down the runway is something that will stay with me until my last breath. It looked fast and my god it didn't disappoint on that front. The noise it made sounded like the world was being violently ripped in two and it would echo around the valley beyond the airfield. The Eurofighter Typhoon is a remarkable aircraft. I believe it is designed to be naturally unbalanced to make it highly maneuverable and leans heavily upon computer technology just to stay in the air.

Our previous attack aircraft the Jaguar, was also multi-national as it was a British-French joint effort. They were also sold to India and Oman. The Tornado was of course British-German-Italian. They were also sold to Saudi Arabia. The Eurofighter is British-German-Italian-Spanish project. Also sold (leased?) to Austria, sold to Saudi Arabia, and ongoing discussions with Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar.