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I have a suggestion for you to react to. "You'd Punch Your Best Mate" | Shrovetide - The Birth of Medieval Football th-cam.com/video/G5bS3edITnw/w-d-xo.html A game of Football, the likes of which you have probably never seen before. This great old game played over two days per year, in all weathers, over all terrain and for up to eight hours a day....pretty much anything goes aside from murder, even the people of Ashbourne think that would be taking things a little too far.
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.
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 !
The Tornado GR1 First flew in 1974, entered service in *1979.* & the ADV F2 in 1984. Don't forget the collaboration between Westland and Aerospatiale. Westland assembled Pumas for the RAF and The French bought our Lynx, we their Gazelle. Puma btw was and still is a fantastic aircraft.
I had to go to BAC in Preston for a week or so in the 1970's (76-78) and while we were there we were taken into the hanger where they were assembling Tornado's. A big thrill for me in those days and an incredibly impressive machine. When they went into service I felt weirdly proud.
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. 😀
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.
Actually the first use of a swing wing was on the Westland-Hill Pterodactyl in the 20/30's. Obviously in a more primitive form, but it's only fair to give them the credit they're due.
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!’.
There's a great low flying anecdote from a Buccaneer pilot flying in the US/UK air exercises over the desert back in the 80's. They were so low the US aircraft couldn't get a radar lock on 'em. The trouble was at such low level their wake was kicking up a dust trail making it easier to spot them, so they climbed to 10', lol.
Desert storm 1 was the best for that in the run up. So many tornados and a10s doing training runs in the dales, once or twice i was practically eye level with the pilot.
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).
The US air force one is fantastic, SR-71, B-52 and an A-10 all in one room? That was quite possibly the most photos I've ever taken in one day before 😂
"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: th-cam.com/video/mOiKjBCOoP0/w-d-xo.html Birth of the SAS: th-cam.com/video/AyRFd8ZIUug/w-d-xo.html
During WW2 there were also some reconnaissance Spitfires that were painted pink, again with the thought that it would be less visible at hight. Search for images of _pink Spitfire_ .
True, but not the same pink, the tornado was more a sandy colour with a hint of pink, the pinkies were more like a dull pink. The pinkies were after ww2, during they used the willys jeep with standard desert patterns but pimped up with weapons etc. And modified certain parts like the radiator cover
@@simonelsey it was assumed that, but im not sure how far down the experimental stage that got before they binned it. There's been a few strange patterns for the navy
My primary school headmaster was with Sterling in the desert, and served in the SAS after the war. He died when I was in my last year of primary and we found out about his amazing military career (well as much as they were allowed to say) in his obituary.
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 absolutely love Brimham rocks, not too far from me as a Lancashire lad! Also going on a tangent here, every time me and my mates go to Wales on the bikes we go to Mach Loop, shat ourselves a few times at fast low level aircraft going straight over us when we’re focusing on the road 🤣 biggest was an A400-M
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.
Contrary to popular claims, no Tornado was shot down by AAA or MANPADS during the attack run while using JP.233 dispensers (the system you refer to) - only one Tornado, ZA392, was lost while carrying JP.233 dispensers, some 10 miles after the weapon had been delivered. No enemy fire was reported in the area, and the loss is believed to have been an instance of Controlled Flight Into Terrain - basically something like spatial disorientation causes the pilot to lose his awareness of where the aircraft is related to the ground, leading to the aircraft being literally flown into the ground.
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.
They were great for low level they could hug mountainsides and go below Radar perfect for surprise bombing attacks, personally I think they should have kept them in service and updated the cockpit with the latest tech they could have been great for defending our homeland .
@@1951woodygeo The issue is that, especially in low-level flying that it causes stress in the airframe and shortening the potential lifetime. My guess is that additionally the swing wing complicates keeping the aircraft airworthy or rather makes it very expensive.
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 😋
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.
And speaking of consortia, there's Airbus in the commercial space. Many things these days are just too big (read: expensive) to go it alone. But then there's SAAB....
The US Navy operate a US built version of the BAE Hawk trainer aircraft, the one flown by the RAF Red Arrows. In the 1950's the US also built a version of the English Electric Canberra bomber for the USAF. They were extensively used during the unpleasantness in Vietnam in the 1960's/70's. NASA still fly a couple extensively modified for high altitude operation.
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.
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
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.
The Fleet air arm had no fixed wing Aircraft for many years.It finished with the Sea Harrier and the Phantom.It just operated helicopters then.Now with the American built F35 Lightning they have fixed wing aircraft again
RNAS was the Royal Navy Air Service and was merged with the Royal Flying Corps to form the Royal Air Force. This happened prior to World War Two. The Royal Navy then replaced RNAS with the Fleet Air Arm which was largely ship based rather than land based. The Fleet Air Arm then expanded to having land based aircraft again. These are rather confusingly based at Royal Navy Air Stations (RNAS).
@@davidknowles3459 During the RN's time with no fixed-wing aircraft at sea they did maintain a squadron of Hawks for use in the aggressor role. Many FAA aircrew flew with the USN on exchange programme schemes.
@@joh451 The Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service combined to form the Royal Air Force on 1st April 1918 during the First World War. The Royal Navy retained control of the ships that carried aircraft to sea, with the RAF providing the aircraft and crews for them as the Fleet Air Arm. This turned out to be a very unsatisfactory arrangement, as the RAF was biased in favour of their land based aircraft, and neglected provision of naval aircraft. The Royal Navy managed to regain control over aircraft design and operation shortly prior to the outbreak of World War 2, the Fleet Air Arm becoming a fully fledged branch of the navy again. Unfortunately too late to repair the neglect of the inter war years leading to the RN being very dependent upon US produced aircraft though out WW2.
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.
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.
The F-14 had a top speed of Mach 2.34. It was a trend at the end of the '60s to make faster fighters as it was thought that the superpowers would be developing supersonic nuclear bombers as their primary offensive weapons. In the end, while the US and USSR both had supersonic bombers in service, speed could never outpace missile technology so strategies changed.
The Typhoon is the fastest plane out there no one can match it’s speed it was built for dog fighting the F35 was built for bombing and attack put the 2 against each other the Typhoon will come out on top .
@@1951woodygeo While I agree that an interceptor will always have an edge on a multirole fighter, I don't know why you think the Typhoon is the fastest plane. The modern fighters that are slower are the F-18 (also a multirole fighter) and...the F-35. The F-16 (another multirole fighter) matches its speed, but the F-15, F-22, MiG-29, and Su-33 are all faster. That being said, speed is only part of the equation, and not necessarily the most important part. Maneuverability and tactics (based on the specific performance of the aircraft involved) are far more important in dogfighting. Stealth aircraft have the advantage of being able to engage other targets before they are even detected, but that would be BVR in hopes to avoid a dogfight.
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.
Later versions carried Skyflash A-A missiles in belly pockets, Skyflash is a Sparrow with much more advanced electronics seeker system designed and produced by Marconi. I worked on it for a fairly long time, ASRAAM, Brimstone and AMRAAM too.
@@572Btriode This video's specifically about the GR-variants, they had no attack radar so semi-active Skyflash missiles wouldn't be much use! The only air combat ordnance they carried were short range IR missiles, like Sidewinder and later ASRAAM. I did like the semi-recessed Skyflash/AMRAAM hardpoints on the ADV/F3, though. Always thought they made really good interceptors; really fast, 4 short ranged and 4 long ranged missiles and a built in 27mm cannon.
And for reference, since they're used (and misused) a lot in film and games, the brevity codes used when firing A2A missiles are: Fox one: semi active radar guided. Uses an external radar system (eg the jets radar) to home in on the target. The radar being used needs to maintain lock until the missile hits. Fox two: Infra red (heat seeking). Uses built in infra red sensors to track the heat given off by the target. The plane doesn't need to maintain any form of contact once fired, but the missiles can be fooled pretty easily as they generally track the hottest thing they see. Sidewinders are fox2. Fox three: Active radar guided. These have built in radar, meaning you don't need to maintain radar lock with the jet (or whatever else they're launched from). They can generally re-aquire, or aquire a lock after launching. Downside is they're expensive, for obvious reasons.
@@AndrewD8Red Nothing much wrong with the Tornado in its day, fairly capable aircraft, although you could say "MRCA" was going a bit too far as shown by the ADV for example. The missiles were cleared from the aircraft with a "helping hand", early trials showed the "help" to be somewhat excessive and damage occurred, nuff said about that. Also I was tangentially involved in the Viggen integration, the excellent low-noise Ericsson radar gave the system outstanding performance although SAAB had to do a little work on the rail launch retaining latch. . . . . .you figure that out ! I was impressed that the Sidewinder modelling detail actually shows the anti roll aileron system, a totally automatic and aerodynamically self-powered mechanical system that is a bit of genius novel engineering, although it isn't modelled in operation unsurprisingly, the server has more than enough to do already shuffling 1's & 0's at a fearsome rate I suspect !
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!!!
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 ;)
In Op GRANBY the Buc was brought back into service. The Tonka thought it was low-level. The Bucs had to decide whether to climb over camels or just continue under their bellies. It was the only aircraft I knew that raised the undercarridge and then descended to flight level.... At RED FLAG in Nellis it flew below the capability of the Red Force aircraft or ground based weapon systems to target, and the USAF were highy peturbed when the lineys were pulling tumbleweed off the operating surfaces when they returned post sortie.
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.
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.
If you're interested in military aircraft you should do a search for videos of the Mach Loop in Wales. Lots of them on TH-cam showing various planes from various counties doing low level flying practice.
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.
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.
I remember at RIAT 2016 I went with my air cadet sqn and there were some extremely loud jets flying by, but the Vulcan took the win it was ridiculous, it was literally making children cry
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.
This confused me for a little bit... one roll isn't enough? he needs to showboat into a 720 or 1080? then I realized wrong spelling... I believe it should be RolE 😂
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.
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.
@@georgebarnes8163 Tempest is Britain, Italy and Sweden. Germany, France and Spain? are doing the same but different. I wonder how long till the inevitable French throwing of toys out the pram and storming off happens?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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..
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).
That first time when you see a Tornado in valley below. I remember being elated that all the stories Id hear of this were true, not just I want to believe that these boys are this skilled/mad/courageous, but see and know its true.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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 .
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 🙂
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.
I was in the same office as the person responsible for assessing the ability of Tornado to deliver munitions when it was first introduced. Every day he told me that the measured performance of Tornado was less than expected. After about three months he announced that it was the same as the Buccaneer.
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 👍
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!
😀 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
Imperial War museum is good, Duxford is part of the museum group, dealing with aircraft, well worth a visit. Has an Avro Vulcan bomber as an exhibit, which you could go inside. Duxford was a battle of Britain airbase, where Douglas Barder got to fly his big wing from. Basically as many fighter aircraft, as was possible against the Germans , who thought that they had smashed the RAF, put paid to their delusions. Douglas Barder, lost both his legs in a flying accident prior to the WW2. Interesting character who learn to walk with prosthetics, famous WW2 ace. Correct about mach 1 speed of sound, Rolls Royce engines are cutting edge, nice motor cars, too.
I cannot remember the year! You see, I used to go to Duxford for its air shows and one year Sir Douglas Bader was there! So I as a teenager, I got to see the man I had read all about! It was quite an experience as he latterly walked right past where I was standing! It was one of those pinch yourselves moments! I wish I could have said thank you to him!
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 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 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.
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.
Really enjoyed the opening skit. Living a stones throw away from RAF Woodford, the Tornado brings me back to my youth in sooooo many ways. I remember at one of the Airshow's here, the M.C. over the tannoy purposefully shocked the whole crowd with a late call out to the Tornado arriving from the right, flying right over the crowds heads at a blistering speed and serious noise. "The next on the agenda, if You look to the right, You'll see the Torn......." It was past us and down at the end of the runway in the fastest speed I've ever witnessed, followed by a very fast speed display. I get confused with Mach this and that like You. This one, most definitely arrived at Mach something, back when they were allowed to do so out of combat. It was shockingly awesome!! In answer to how much it was used. It's the plane the RAF used the most in the more recent War's, I've seen it doing Airshow's in Gulf Desert colour, multiple times. RAF Woodford has since closed an We miss it very much around here. Thank You for showing off one of the planes, as to why We miss it so much. Great Video!
Back in 1984 i was serving with 617 Sqn. and took part in Exercise Prairie Vortex which was the participation in the USAF SAC Bombing Competition Giant Voice. We were based at Ellsworth AFB near Rapid City , South Dakota. The Americans could not believe that such a small aircraft could possibly be a bomber. In fact they thought the Victor Tanker AAR aircraft were the bombers and the Tornados were fighter escorts! I can remember the air traffic controllers at Rapid City Regional Airport telling a visiting aircraft that they "had two tornados going through a few hours ago". This got the response "did you have much damage?". Mind you when the Tornados won the bombing competition the USAF had to take notice.
@@scaleybrat That's an incredible memory to have experienced in relation to the Tornado bud. Thanks for sharing Mike. They were so effective and efficient that they used to try doing something original every year in their Airshow displays here(bit like my memory above) They showed them off doing mock bombing runs as well i think. Compared to Some of the other fighters that displayed, they were a little less showy and quite an understated plane but it comes as no shock they did well in the competition. Even from a young age i gradually learnt year on year, they were built for effectiveness.
@@49kevi I really had a great experience at Ellsworth and the Black Hills. A really “spiritual” place. The people were very friendly. It was so nice I have been back twice on vacation.
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
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)
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.
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.
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 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 .
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 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
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".
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.
5:11 Well yes, but for close Allies there are some exceptions. Especially when in return they also give you all the information on the plane, which would obviously happen when you design it together.
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.
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 !
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.
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 Typhoon will remain the major strike aircraft in near future. A new stealth aircraft started in 2015. This will be known as the Tempest. It is not yet available and in operation at the moment but there are RAF mock-ups you can view to get an idea of what it will look like, though it will be subject to change.
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.
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.
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.
In the UK The Tornado dropped out of service in 2019 (with a couple of small exceptions), it's still in service in Germany. It made financial sense to develop an aircraft together with our closest NATO allies, Much as we have now done with the Euro Fighter (Typhoon). If you think the US had to buy the Sea Harrier from the UK, a joint venture would have been cheaper.
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 😎
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I have a suggestion for you to react to. "You'd Punch Your Best Mate" | Shrovetide - The Birth of Medieval Football th-cam.com/video/G5bS3edITnw/w-d-xo.html
A game of Football, the likes of which you have probably never seen before. This great old game played over two days per year, in all weathers, over all terrain and for up to eight hours a day....pretty much anything goes aside from murder, even the people of Ashbourne think that would be taking things a little too far.
I recommend this documentary for raf it about modern raf and ww2 quicj reaction and how uk raf works th-cam.com/video/3hijzP1zzLI/w-d-xo.html
Russian Su-30 "looking inside" transport cargo plane IL-76 th-cam.com/video/WSLx_JheRFE/w-d-xo.html 😄
No the tornado was retired in 2019 the main aircraft of the RAF is currently the Typhoon fighter and the F 35 bought form the yanks
The actual.design teams were impressive, the built most of the European fighters from world war or onwards
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.
Same thing flying out of Valley. You look up at people looking down into your office.
Had the same experience in Scotland. Very weird
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
Mate, that is absolutely wicked 😎😎
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 !
The Tornado GR1 First flew in 1974, entered service in *1979.* & the ADV F2 in 1984. Don't forget the collaboration between Westland and Aerospatiale. Westland assembled Pumas for the RAF and The French bought our Lynx, we their Gazelle. Puma btw was and still is a fantastic aircraft.
MRCA = Mother Reilly's Cardboard Aircraft
I had to go to BAC in Preston for a week or so in the 1970's (76-78) and while we were there we were taken into the hanger where they were assembling Tornado's. A big thrill for me in those days and an incredibly impressive machine. When they went into service I felt weirdly proud.
Although very underpowered the Jaguar was a beautiful aircraft.
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. 😀
So that would be Fairey Hydraulics - originally from Fairey Aviation
@@stevec401 that’s us though now we’re Collins Aerospace under Raytheon.
They were good at that. Noisy things.
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...
Had one at treetop height directly overhead, oh yeah it was epic
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.
Barnes WALLIS
@@EricIrl My bad :)
Actually the first use of a swing wing was on the Westland-Hill Pterodactyl in the 20/30's. Obviously in a more primitive form, but it's only fair to give them the credit they're due.
Ironically 617sqn went on to operate the Tornado between 1983 and 2014.
I think it was 9 Squadron…..
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!’.
There's a great low flying anecdote from a Buccaneer pilot flying in the US/UK air exercises over the desert back in the 80's. They were so low the US aircraft couldn't get a radar lock on 'em. The trouble was at such low level their wake was kicking up a dust trail making it easier to spot them, so they climbed to 10', lol.
Desert storm 1 was the best for that in the run up. So many tornados and a10s doing training runs in the dales, once or twice i was practically eye level with the pilot.
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).
The US air force one is fantastic, SR-71, B-52 and an A-10 all in one room? That was quite possibly the most photos I've ever taken in one day before 😂
@@joshbarber3931 I like seeing the contrast between the B17 (& B24) and the B52, showing how much larger the later aircraft is
Tornados came into service in the 80s
"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: th-cam.com/video/mOiKjBCOoP0/w-d-xo.html
Birth of the SAS: th-cam.com/video/AyRFd8ZIUug/w-d-xo.html
During WW2 there were also some reconnaissance Spitfires that were painted pink, again with the thought that it would be less visible at hight.
Search for images of _pink Spitfire_ .
True, but not the same pink, the tornado was more a sandy colour with a hint of pink, the pinkies were more like a dull pink. The pinkies were after ww2, during they used the willys jeep with standard desert patterns but pimped up with weapons etc. And modified certain parts like the radiator cover
it started in 1940 with Mountbatten pink for rn ships
@@simonelsey it was assumed that, but im not sure how far down the experimental stage that got before they binned it. There's been a few strange patterns for the navy
My primary school headmaster was with Sterling in the desert, and served in the SAS after the war. He died when I was in my last year of primary and we found out about his amazing military career (well as much as they were allowed to say) in his obituary.
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 😊👍🇬🇧🇺🇸
Dove Cottage in Grasmere is a great place to watch the training flights...
I absolutely love Brimham rocks, not too far from me as a Lancashire lad! Also going on a tangent here, every time me and my mates go to Wales on the bikes we go to Mach Loop, shat ourselves a few times at fast low level aircraft going straight over us when we’re focusing on the road 🤣 biggest was an A400-M
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.
Contrary to popular claims, no Tornado was shot down by AAA or MANPADS during the attack run while using JP.233 dispensers (the system you refer to) - only one Tornado, ZA392, was lost while carrying JP.233 dispensers, some 10 miles after the weapon had been delivered. No enemy fire was reported in the area, and the loss is believed to have been an instance of Controlled Flight Into Terrain - basically something like spatial disorientation causes the pilot to lose his awareness of where the aircraft is related to the ground, leading to the aircraft being literally flown into the ground.
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.
They were great for low level they could hug mountainsides and go below Radar perfect for surprise bombing attacks, personally I think they should have kept them in service and updated the cockpit with the latest tech they could have been great for defending our homeland .
@@1951woodygeo The issue is that, especially in low-level flying that it causes stress in the airframe and shortening the potential lifetime. My guess is that additionally the swing wing complicates keeping the aircraft airworthy or rather makes it very expensive.
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 😋
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.
And speaking of consortia, there's Airbus in the commercial space. Many things these days are just too big (read: expensive) to go it alone. But then there's SAAB....
The US Navy operate a US built version of the BAE Hawk trainer aircraft, the one flown by the RAF Red Arrows. In the 1950's the US also built a version of the English Electric Canberra bomber for the USAF. They were extensively used during the unpleasantness in Vietnam in the 1960's/70's. NASA still fly a couple extensively modified for high altitude operation.
@@brucemckean2848 SAAB Grippen for Sweden (with a US motor) and DASSAULT Rafale for France (with a french motor) ...
The predecessor of the PANAVIA 200 Tornado was the French-British SEPECAT Jaguar, also a cooperation.
@@stephanedaguet915 France bailed on Eurofighter part way through the project and then built something that looks suspiciously like it. 😏
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.
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
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.
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.
The Fleet air arm had no fixed wing Aircraft for many years.It finished with the Sea Harrier and the Phantom.It just operated helicopters then.Now with the American built F35 Lightning they have fixed wing aircraft again
What is the difference between Fleet Air Arm and RNAS ?
RNAS was the Royal Navy Air Service and was merged with the Royal Flying Corps to form the Royal Air Force. This happened prior to World War Two. The Royal Navy then replaced RNAS with the Fleet Air Arm which was largely ship based rather than land based. The Fleet Air Arm then expanded to having land based aircraft again. These are rather confusingly based at Royal Navy Air Stations (RNAS).
@@davidknowles3459 During the RN's time with no fixed-wing aircraft at sea they did maintain a squadron of Hawks for use in the aggressor role. Many FAA aircrew flew with the USN on exchange programme schemes.
@@joh451 The Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service combined to form the Royal Air Force on 1st April 1918 during the First World War. The Royal Navy retained control of the ships that carried aircraft to sea, with the RAF providing the aircraft and crews for them as the Fleet Air Arm. This turned out to be a very unsatisfactory arrangement, as the RAF was biased in favour of their land based aircraft, and neglected provision of naval aircraft. The Royal Navy managed to regain control over aircraft design and operation shortly prior to the outbreak of World War 2, the Fleet Air Arm becoming a fully fledged branch of the navy again. Unfortunately too late to repair the neglect of the inter war years leading to the RN being very dependent upon US produced aircraft though out WW2.
OMG, you looked like "Ace Rimmer" from Red Dwarf. lol
Good shout - she does!
Smoke me a kipper I’ll be back for breakfast.
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.
Fantastic reaction. I remember this test flying near Preston, Lancashire & over Cumbria where I live, thanks SoGal 👍
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.
Extraordinary speeds, incredible.
The F-14 had a top speed of Mach 2.34. It was a trend at the end of the '60s to make faster fighters as it was thought that the superpowers would be developing supersonic nuclear bombers as their primary offensive weapons. In the end, while the US and USSR both had supersonic bombers in service, speed could never outpace missile technology so strategies changed.
The Typhoon is the fastest plane out there no one can match it’s speed it was built for dog fighting the F35 was built for bombing and attack put the 2 against each other the Typhoon will come out on top .
@@1951woodygeo While I agree that an interceptor will always have an edge on a multirole fighter, I don't know why you think the Typhoon is the fastest plane. The modern fighters that are slower are the F-18 (also a multirole fighter) and...the F-35. The F-16 (another multirole fighter) matches its speed, but the F-15, F-22, MiG-29, and Su-33 are all faster.
That being said, speed is only part of the equation, and not necessarily the most important part. Maneuverability and tactics (based on the specific performance of the aircraft involved) are far more important in dogfighting. Stealth aircraft have the advantage of being able to engage other targets before they are even detected, but that would be BVR in hopes to avoid a dogfight.
@@stephensamuels1690, XB70 was canceled because of cost overruns!
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.
Later versions carried Skyflash A-A missiles in belly pockets, Skyflash is a Sparrow with much more advanced electronics seeker system designed and produced by Marconi. I worked on it for a fairly long time, ASRAAM, Brimstone and AMRAAM too.
@@572Btriode
This video's specifically about the GR-variants, they had no attack radar so semi-active Skyflash missiles wouldn't be much use! The only air combat ordnance they carried were short range IR missiles, like Sidewinder and later ASRAAM.
I did like the semi-recessed Skyflash/AMRAAM hardpoints on the ADV/F3, though.
Always thought they made really good interceptors; really fast, 4 short ranged and 4 long ranged missiles and a built in 27mm cannon.
And for reference, since they're used (and misused) a lot in film and games, the brevity codes used when firing A2A missiles are:
Fox one: semi active radar guided. Uses an external radar system (eg the jets radar) to home in on the target. The radar being used needs to maintain lock until the missile hits.
Fox two: Infra red (heat seeking). Uses built in infra red sensors to track the heat given off by the target. The plane doesn't need to maintain any form of contact once fired, but the missiles can be fooled pretty easily as they generally track the hottest thing they see. Sidewinders are fox2.
Fox three: Active radar guided. These have built in radar, meaning you don't need to maintain radar lock with the jet (or whatever else they're launched from). They can generally re-aquire, or aquire a lock after launching. Downside is they're expensive, for obvious reasons.
@@AndrewD8Red Nothing much wrong with the Tornado in its day, fairly capable aircraft, although you could say "MRCA" was going a bit too far as shown by the ADV for example. The missiles were cleared from the aircraft with a "helping hand", early trials showed the "help" to be somewhat excessive and damage occurred, nuff said about that. Also I was tangentially involved in the Viggen integration, the excellent low-noise Ericsson radar gave the system outstanding performance although SAAB had to do a little work on the rail launch retaining latch. . . . . .you figure that out !
I was impressed that the Sidewinder modelling detail actually shows the anti roll aileron system, a totally automatic and aerodynamically self-powered mechanical system that is a bit of genius novel engineering, although it isn't modelled in operation unsurprisingly, the server has more than enough to do already shuffling 1's & 0's at a fearsome rate I suspect !
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 remember that well. Though it was the fighters that were damaged more than the bombers.
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 ;)
th-cam.com/video/lteL18wd15Y/w-d-xo.html
Bananas, Bananas, Banananas. There is low level flight then there is Buccaneer low level flight. Aircraft crew interview.
Bananas for the third word. Fat fingers on a phone.
Many years ago I watched a Buccaneer fly down below the Forth rail bridge low over the river, spectacular.. What an aircraft..
In Op GRANBY the Buc was brought back into service. The Tonka thought it was low-level. The Bucs had to decide whether to climb over camels or just continue under their bellies. It was the only aircraft I knew that raised the undercarridge and then descended to flight level.... At RED FLAG in Nellis it flew below the capability of the Red Force aircraft or ground based weapon systems to target, and the USAF were highy peturbed when the lineys were pulling tumbleweed off the operating surfaces when they returned post sortie.
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.
RAF Tornado produced from 1979 - 1998 , its actual first flight was in 1974 this was the pre-production or test flights you might say.
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.
If you're interested in military aircraft you should do a search for videos of the Mach Loop in Wales. Lots of them on TH-cam showing various planes from various counties doing low level flying practice.
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.
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.
That was when they were doing night flying from Leeming which was home to 3 squadrons of F3 ADVs
I remember at RIAT 2016 I went with my air cadet sqn and there were some extremely loud jets flying by, but the Vulcan took the win it was ridiculous, it was literally making children cry
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.
I used to refuel them :).
Multi
Roll
Combat
Aircraft
Or, as the Americans call them: Swing Wing.
Ahh yes, The Tomcats
This confused me for a little bit... one roll isn't enough? he needs to showboat into a 720 or 1080? then I realized wrong spelling... I believe it should be RolE 😂
@@dakker5292 You are, of course, correct! I am dreadfully embarrassed :)
Role, not roll. (Although it’s pretty good at rolling too!)
Loved the skit, in the same way when your kid draws something and you stick it on the fridge. Not flawless, still priceless.
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.
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.
Do you not mean the new Tempest? the Typhoon is not new and in fact the RAF will soon be retiring the old trance1 typhoons? just asking.
@@georgebarnes8163 Probably a poor choice of words on my part, I meant it was newer than the Tornado, I should have used a better word.
@@stephenparker6362 no bother buddy, all good.
@@georgebarnes8163
Tempest is Britain, Italy and Sweden.
Germany, France and Spain? are doing the same but different.
I wonder how long till the inevitable French throwing of toys out the pram and storming off happens?
@@kevinshort3943 I think the Tempest s a pipe dream for all parties concerned
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.
Hilarious opening, brilliant cosplay! You are truly great, SoGal!
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.
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
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.
I love the opening, and the top gun top 🤣. The weird alien eyes are making me laugh as well haha.
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.
2nd fun fact, Ewan (Obi-wan Kenobi) McGregor's older brother Colin was a Tornado pilot & his call sign was Obi-two
Very amusing intro, nicely put together too 👍🏻
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..
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).
That first time when you see a Tornado in valley below. I remember being elated that all the stories Id hear of this were true, not just I want to believe that these boys are this skilled/mad/courageous, but see and know its true.
@@themisspultone A Lockheed Hercules flying at low level is more impressive, IMO. Slower, but much bigger!
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
You could say it was a bit of a Maverick idea... I'll see myself out
@@robet007 OH please do hahaha
@@ThirteenthOfFour but not to the danger zone...danger zone...
Great video - I really loved the beginning. 😁 xx
Go Gal goes Goose..
What an intro! Now I've seen the lights reflecting in your glasses, I can't unsee them....
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.
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
bet I am older lived through the second world war.
It is still in service in germany and other countries
Great video. I loved that opening ! 🙂👍🙂
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.
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
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 .
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 🙂
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.
I was in the same office as the person responsible for assessing the ability of Tornado to deliver munitions when it was first introduced. Every day he told me that the measured performance of Tornado was less than expected. After about three months he announced that it was the same as the Buccaneer.
I often wonder which would have proved the better strike aircraft, the Tornado or a new build Buccaneer with modern engines and avionics?
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.
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 👍
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!
😀 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
Imperial War museum is good, Duxford is part of the museum group, dealing with aircraft, well worth a visit. Has an Avro Vulcan bomber as an exhibit, which you could go inside. Duxford was a battle of Britain airbase, where Douglas Barder got to fly his big wing from. Basically as many fighter aircraft, as was possible against the Germans , who thought that they had smashed the RAF, put paid to their delusions. Douglas Barder, lost both his legs in a flying accident prior to the WW2. Interesting character who learn to walk with prosthetics, famous WW2 ace. Correct about mach 1 speed of sound, Rolls Royce engines are cutting edge, nice motor cars, too.
I would also highly recommend Cosford RAF museum, it has loads there including a Vulcan and a Valliant.
Douglas BADER.
There is also a collection of historic airliners at Duxford, and the American Air Museum, which has a lot of American planes including a B52.
I cannot remember the year! You see, I used to go to Duxford for its air shows and one year Sir Douglas Bader was there! So I as a teenager, I got to see the man I had read all about! It was quite an experience as he latterly walked right past where I was standing! It was one of those pinch yourselves moments! I wish I could have said thank you to him!
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 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.
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.
RIP...
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.
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.😀 .
Really enjoyed the opening skit. Living a stones throw away from RAF Woodford, the Tornado brings me back to my youth in sooooo many ways. I remember at one of the Airshow's here, the M.C. over the tannoy purposefully shocked the whole crowd with a late call out to the Tornado arriving from the right, flying right over the crowds heads at a blistering speed and serious noise. "The next on the agenda, if You look to the right, You'll see the Torn......." It was past us and down at the end of the runway in the fastest speed I've ever witnessed, followed by a very fast speed display. I get confused with Mach this and that like You. This one, most definitely arrived at Mach something, back when they were allowed to do so out of combat. It was shockingly awesome!! In answer to how much it was used. It's the plane the RAF used the most in the more recent War's, I've seen it doing Airshow's in Gulf Desert colour, multiple times. RAF Woodford has since closed an We miss it very much around here. Thank You for showing off one of the planes, as to why We miss it so much. Great Video!
Back in 1984 i was serving with 617 Sqn. and took part in Exercise Prairie Vortex which was the participation in the USAF SAC Bombing Competition Giant Voice. We were based at Ellsworth AFB near Rapid City , South Dakota. The Americans could not believe that such a small aircraft could possibly be a bomber. In fact they thought the Victor Tanker AAR aircraft were the bombers and the Tornados were fighter escorts! I can remember the air traffic controllers at Rapid City Regional Airport telling a visiting aircraft that they "had two tornados going through a few hours ago". This got the response "did you have much damage?". Mind you when the Tornados won the bombing competition the USAF had to take notice.
@@scaleybrat That's an incredible memory to have experienced in relation to the Tornado bud. Thanks for sharing Mike. They were so effective and efficient that they used to try doing something original every year in their Airshow displays here(bit like my memory above) They showed them off doing mock bombing runs as well i think. Compared to Some of the other fighters that displayed, they were a little less showy and quite an understated plane but it comes as no shock they did well in the competition. Even from a young age i gradually learnt year on year, they were built for effectiveness.
@@49kevi I really had a great experience at Ellsworth and the Black Hills. A really “spiritual” place. The people were very friendly. It was so nice I have been back twice on vacation.
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
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)
SOGAL MAVERICK reporting for duty✌
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.
Instant thumbs up for the intro :)
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.
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 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 .
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 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
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".
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.
5:11 Well yes, but for close Allies there are some exceptions. Especially when in return they also give you all the information on the plane, which would obviously happen when you design it together.
The Saudi’s are another operator planning to keep them in service until at least 2030.
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.
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 !
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.
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.
Great cameo performance by Charlie from ‘Top Gun’ at the beginning, although I didn’t know she had lasers for eyes!!😂
my head canon would actually be that the Tornado is too sexy of an aircraft to be kept in service.
FYI - I used to work in a factory making parts for this plane !!
The Typhoon will remain the major strike aircraft in near future. A new stealth aircraft started in 2015. This will be known as the Tempest. It is not yet available and in operation at the moment but there are RAF mock-ups you can view to get an idea of what it will look like, though it will be subject to change.
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.
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.
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.
In the UK The Tornado dropped out of service in 2019 (with a couple of small exceptions), it's still in service in Germany. It made financial sense to develop an aircraft together with our closest NATO allies, Much as we have now done with the Euro Fighter (Typhoon). If you think the US had to buy the Sea Harrier from the UK, a joint venture would have been cheaper.
It's a double edged sword. On the one hand, you spread the cost. On the other, it can lead to a lot of compromising.
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.
Great skit in the beginning of the video, Sarah!😁 At 7:44 the pyrotechnician in you becomes apparent, he, he.
These days the Eurofighter, Typhoon has taken over as the aircraft of choice.
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 😎