Panavia Tornado

I can remember those days with loading games on my early computer it used to take ages just to load one game from tape, I wonder how long the pilots had to wait until all the data was loaded into the Tornado's computer before they went flying?
 
FighterJock said:
I can remember those days with loading games on my early computer it used to take ages just to load one game from tape, I wonder how long the pilots had to wait until all the data was loaded into the Tornado's computer before they went flying?
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Yeah loading "Ace of Aces" for the Commodore C16plus via datacete took near as long as the time that passed since then...
 
H_K said:
Great post. Love the details! Interestingly, I’ve heard the same from a French Mirage F1C driver.

Even though the F1’s Cyrano radar would have been miles behind a Tornado’s Foxhunter, the benefit of Fox 1 capability (Super 530F) gave them lots of confidence going up against F-16As, even in the early 90s by which time the F1 had been relegated behind 2 generations of Mirage 2000Cs.

I’ll note that he also mentioned the importance of ECM, which apparently few F-16As carried (despite provisions for an external ALQ pod on the centerline). I imagine that was another point in the Tornado ADVs’ favor?
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Bingo. It is easy to forget that the Mirages had Super 530F & Super 530D medium range SARH missiles right off 1980 (F1C-200) and 1985 (Mirage 2000 RDI -look down / shoot down, pulse-doppler).

When the 348 deal-of-the-century F-16A delivered from 1980 had no Sparrows and only got AMRAAMs with MLU in the 1990's.

It is a pity that argument couldn't be used by the F1-M53 in 1974-1975 during the Deal of the Century - but at the time the F1 only had the clunky R530 : the Super 530F only came five years later - dang.
 
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How good were the ADV birds in BFM? I’ve heard radically different things about how it performed. With detractors saying that it is better than F-4 but no match for fourth gen but other saying that it has bested MiG-29 during and F-15 in exercises.
 
Arjen said:
The 8 kB ROM, 1 kB RAM limit on the ZX81 cassette would be unhelpful for that purpose. Loading/unloading that tiny amount of data could take minutes.
Most audio cassettes sold were of the C60 or C90 type, the ZX81 cassette looks like a C10. It would be interesting to find out which cassette type was used in Tornado - keeping in mind the data transfer speed.
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A lot of contemporary systems were working with 32k addressing limits, so data content on cassettes wouldn't necessarily be huge. OTOH the ZX81 worked absolutely fine* with larger audio cassettes for storing multiple sets of data - I usually stored anything I was saving three or four times in the hope that at least one copy would be viable.

* For limited values of 'fine', a reliable system it was not.

If you were running a dedicated system - as opposed to plugging into a boom-box - and buying higher quality tape, then you could potentially run the tape at a significantly higher speed than audio rates.
 
DAT was designed for uncompressed audio, at ~1.4 Mbit/s. It puts this data on tape in a manner similar to video recorders: record/playback heads on a drum lay down tracks diagonally on the tape, allowing a high speed of the head relative to the tape without actually driving the tape at high speeds.
 
siegecrossbow said:
How good were the ADV birds in BFM? I’ve heard radically different things about how it performed. With detractors saying that it is better than F-4 but no match for fourth gen but other saying that it has bested MiG-29 during and F-15 in exercises.
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It could out-scissor a Hunter and turn inside an unslatted F-4. Beyond that, not great - especially if the fight went vertical.
 
To give you some idea, here are the EM diagrams of Italian Tornado IDS at low altitude:
Tornado TR lsw.png
Tornado TR.png

These are for the RB 199 Mk 101 engines (14840 lbf in reheat), which are less powerful than the ADV's Mk 104 (16920 lbf), but it should be remembered that ADV was a bit heavier than IDS (30800 lbs vs 31970 lbs empty), so the performance did not differ much. In fact, David Gledhill, in his excellent book "Tornado F3 in focus", which, in my opinion, provides the most comprehensive and balanced view of the F3, gives the turn rate of 19 deg/s at low level for the F3 - consistent with the above diagrams. For additional insight, you can also refer to Gledhill's interview. In general, Tornado was in most respects slightly superior performance-wise to Phantom, but the difference between Tornado and F-4 was incomparably smaller than between Tornado and e.g. F-15. Still, it is worth highlighting that, especially after getting AMRAAM and JTIDS, the Tornado F3 consistently proved itself over various exercises, beating F-16s and F-15s on several occasions, but mainly due to the superior SA and BVR tactics, which Gledhill describes in detail in his book.
 
FighterJock said:
That was a joke Arjen because the Tornado F2 did not have radar fited and instead carried cement in the nose for weight purposes, strange I know.
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That is not true. The ballast was actually a large disc of steel rather than a piece of concrete. You can see that in the photos below. This stopped the aircraft from becoming tail heavy when working on the jet without an AI24 FOXHUNTER RADAR fitted. It also kept the CofG in check if you wanted to deliver an aircraft without one in. The ‘blue circle’ came from the fact that it was a circle of steel (blue in colour) to start off with, but they were then sprayed with white paint if I recall correctly to keep the corrosion down. However, if I ever got assigned any aircraft without a working RADAR it was either known as “Zulu 10” or “lead nosed” by the groundcrew, so the blue circle moniker was very short lived.
 

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siegecrossbow said:
How good were the ADV birds in BFM? I’ve heard radically different things about how it performed. With detractors saying that it is better than F-4 but no match for fourth gen but other saying that it has bested MiG-29 during and F-15 in exercises.
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I was an Air Combat Instructor on the Tornado F3. So here we go. At low level the jet was great, however, the jet was stressed to 7.5G so against more agile 9G aircraft it would struggle. But there was plenty of specific excess power (SEP) at low level and so during fighter affil the F3 could hold its own nicely.

For Air Combat Training (ACT) and Basic Fighter Manoeuvring (BFM) training, normally done with a 10,000ft base height, then the F3 started to struggle. Above 18,000ft, then you ran out of SEP in almost any turn. The aircraft was good at a single circle fight and even against the likes of F15, F16 and F18 she would hold her own at around 180KIAS in a single circle fight with mid-flap selected. The snag was that you needed to deselect mid flap if you wanted to fire AIM-9 or ASRAAM as for real the rocket motor would burn the flap off on one side! So, you had to remember that one if you were in a mid-flap scissors fight!

In a two-circle fight, the jet sucked against anything like Eagle, M2000, Viper, Hornet, Fulcrum, Flanker or Viggen. Started ACT or BFM at around 25,000ft to 30,000ft the jet would need to be overbanked to keep any speed, and involved a series of unload/load pulling manoeuvres as you raced down towards base height. At best, against something like a F16 at medium level you would be giving away about 10-15 degrees a second. So normally, if the F16 driver was sharp the whole thing would be over within 10-15 secs! However, fighting as a pair and relying on your flares initially, if you could get the F16 driver to overshoot and get into a flat or rolling scissors, you could hold off the best Pilots long enough to get your wingman in for a shot against your foe. So, it often wasn’t as clear cut. Especially, with JTIDS where we would sit at the extremes of visual support between a pair, as a “RADAR supported” pair. This meant sitting in battle formation at around 5 miles rather than the normal 2-3 miles for battle - this often caught out any unseen adversaries as the unseen F3 wingman would often come in to save the day.

The other thing you had to watch apart from G was AOA. For the F3 the Normal Operating max was 19AOA and with a Never Exceed of 21AOA. Above that, the big fin was getting massively buffeted due to aircraft design, and above 25AOA you would lose the fin cap or RHWR antennae! I think the highest AOA I saw during my time was 28AOA and the fin cap and RHWR was trashed in the process. But she wasn’t designed for high alpha fighting.

The F3 was designed as an “Agile Interceptor” to fly far out in the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap. It was to detect and chase down long range Soviet aviation (Bears, Fencers, Backfires and Blackjacks). It was superb for that role. The Typhoon was the complimentary fighter designed for Central Europe to take on the expected short range and highly agile Fulcrum and also the longer range Flanker later on. The Berlin Wall changed all that in 1989, and the F3 was used over the skies of Iraq and Bosnia on tasks it wasn’t originally designed for. It did well without a single loss of aircraft nor any Allied aircraft it was riding shotgun for (OCA), it also never let anything through when doing DCA. Finally, for UK and Falklands Islands Quick Reaction Alert, the task it was designed for, it did an exceptional job and met everything it was scrambled to intercept.

Sadly, there are many that malign it, but when you view it through the above lens, you start to understand that it was pretty good. The proposed Mid Life Upgrade (MLU) for the late 90s was cancelled in 1993 - that would have given more powerful EJ200 engines (to resolve the medium/high level SEP issue), Stage 2G* RADAR (that did come a little later, although an upgraded BLUE VIXEN was also considered), AMRAAM (which came instead of Active SkyFlash), ASRAAM, a helmet mounted sight (I did some simulator trials with that), Towed RADAR Decoy (TRD - we did get this, but it was packaged in a BOZ dispenser, rather than the smaller pod originally conceived), JTIDS Link 16 (this came by the early 90s - a game changer), RADAR Cross Section reductions (some of these were used in the first Gulf War), EW capabilities (we got those along with ALARM capabilities around 2001), IRST, TIALD and a host of software updates. Sadly, the so-called “peace dividend” cancelled a lot of these as NATO and the UK decided that we were all going to be friends… The Tornado F3 and the follow on Tornado 2000 was a victim of these funding cuts.

You can read about some of the MLU options for the F3 in the National Archives. Screen shot attached.
 

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Gaznav said:
I was an Air Combat Instructor on the Tornado F3.
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SNIP

Gaznav said:
Sadly, there are many that malign it, but when you view it through the above lens, you start to understand that it was pretty good.
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Hurrah! About time somebody else said that, somebody who has experience of it.

Ta

Chris
 
Scott Kenny said:
Such a shame the F3 didn't get the EJ200s, that would have been wild! +50% thrust in MIL, and +25% thrust in AB.
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The single crystal blades from the Mk 105s made a 2,000ft-3,000ft medium level CAP height difference. Sadly, they went back to Germany after the first Gulf War. But, you’re right, the EJ200s would have made CAP in block 3 achievable, rather than low block 2. It would have also reduced the need load/unload during BFM which would have reduced the fatigue count too.

In later life, some of the mods on the F3 were turned off as it would be more capable than Typhoon in many areas. Also, the Defence Budget was shrinking all the time and so spending on the F3 and putting Typhoon at risk made no sense.
 
It seemed like Tornado ADV had an unrealistic short life. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them had 2000 hours left on the airframes.
 
MadRat said:
It seemed like Tornado ADV had an unrealistic short life. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them had 2000 hours left on the airframes.
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Lots of hours, but the Fatigue Index (FI) killed them. This was due to the RB199 poor SEP at medium to high altitude. This saw you loading to pull G and unloading to accelerate to the best speeds for instantaneous or sustained turn rates. This saw the metal structures sustaining higher FI than originally designed. There was a FI extension program that many were put through, but by the end the airframes had their max G reduced from 7.5G to 4G or lower to preserve them to 2011/12 for the last flights at RAF Leuchars and the BVRAAM missile trials. If the EJ200s had been fitted then I suspect there would have been way more FI left on the airframes. Sadly, by 2011/12 the airframes were knackered.
 
Gaznav said:
Lots of hours, but the Fatigue Index (FI) killed them. This was due to the RB199 poor SEP at medium to high altitude. This saw you loading to pull G and unloading to accelerate to the best speeds for instantaneous or sustained turn rates. This saw the metal structures sustaining higher FI than originally designed. There was a FI extension program that many were put through, but by the end the airframes had their max G reduced from 7.5G to 4G or lower to preserve them to 2011/12 for the last flights at RAF Leuchars and the BVRAAM missile trials. If the EJ200s had been fitted then I suspect there would have been way more FI left on the airframes. Sadly, by 2011/12 the airframes were knackered.
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That is a shame going by the ADV mission and that being pretty contrary to use as an interceptor. Crying about no money then breaking your toys on hand was always in poor taste.

I am really surprised that neither Australia nor India weren't interested in them for use as interceptors. Skyflash would have been a good missile for them. ASRAAM and AMRAAM would have made them even later. Its a shame the former colonies all basically turned their backs on UK industry. Canada would have never bought it, but it suited their air policing needs well imho. Tornado seemed to become what they always thought Javelin should have been.

I got to see several Tornadoes up close and it was a good looking plane with quality detail work. Never seemed to get the respect it should have enjoyed.
 
The CF-18 was a good buy for Canada, but they could have done with a long range interceptor too. The CF-105 Arrow would have stayed in service well into the 90s if the Canadians had bought it. The CF-101 Voodoo probably wouldn’t have happened too.
 
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I feel the Tornado (both of them), suffered from some bad timing.

The design was rooted in another swing wing design from the 60s. By the time it became operational in the late 70s..combat aircraft design began shifting away from swing wings, the need to fly low and fast for strike, and more towards multi-role designs, precision, etc. You also saw the F-teens entering service by then, with newer design philosophies.

As far as different variants of the same basic airframe goes rather than a multirole in a single airframe, perhaps the Mirage 2000 or the older Viggen would have been cheaper for many European air forces. Too bad neither were widely adopted within NATO.
 
@helmutkohl - the B-1B came in the mid 80s, the F-14 in the mid/late 70s and it was the F-111A that was a late 1960s aircraft. The Tu-22 BACKFIRE was late 60s, the SU-24 FENCER and MiG 23 FLOGGER was mid/late 70s and the Tu-160 BLACKJACK flew mid 80s. So, I would offer that Tornado was of it’s time compared to others?
 
Maybe if they committed to EJ200 going into Tornado at some point we have a different history. I can vaguely remember it being mentioned as if it was a sure coming step in (I think) Aviation Week & Space Technology but it never materialized.
 
MadRat said:
Maybe if they committed to EJ200 going into Tornado at some point we have a different history. I can vaguely remember it being mentioned as if it was a sure coming step in (I think) Aviation Week & Space Technology but it never materialized.
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I mention it above with the below linked attachment. It was planned. The biggest issue was the thrust reverse on the RB199 as that wasn’t designed for the EJ200 nozzles, but the engine mounts were the same and why EAP and DA1/DA2 of Typhoon had RB199-104D and RB199-122 respectively.

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/attachments/img_0029-jpeg.788753/
 
Here are some photos of DA-1 and DA-2 with the RB199-122s fitted. No thrust reversers on these. First flights in 1994 as EJ200 is not ready. Which is likely another reason why Tornado didn’t get them - apart from the “Peace Dividend” after the fall of the USSR and the lowering of defence spending! IMG_4424.jpeg
IMG_4425.jpeg
IMG_4426.jpeg
 
Gaznav said:
@helmutkohl - the B-1B came in the mid 80s, the F-14 in the mid/late 70s and it was the F-111A that was a late 1960s aircraft. The Tu-22 BACKFIRE was late 60s, the SU-24 FENCER and MiG 23 FLOGGER was mid/late 70s and the Tu-160 BLACKJACK flew mid 80s. So, I would offer that Tornado was of it’s time compared to others?
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I think that if the Cold War had lasted another five years the EJ200 engine-upgrade would've happened as planned.
 
CJGibson said:
A bit of a Tornado sidetrack here. I'm working on Tornado recce stuff at the moment and while attending a strokey-beard meeting, began to ponder what the 'D' in IDS stood for. IDS is always described as 'Interdictor/Strike'. Is the 'D' just to give it a good ring? Or is it some German or Italian title?

Chris
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While rummaging in The National Archives catalogue for Tornado stuff, I found:

Advanced Air-To-Surface Guided Weapon (ASGW) for use with Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA) Intelligence Data System...

Ministry of Defence: Central Defence Scientific Staff and predecessors: Registered Files (CSA, AE 1 and A Series) and Papers. ASSISTANT CHIEF SCIENTIFIC ADVISER (PROJECTS). Advanced Air-To-Surface Guided Weapon (ASGW) for use with Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA) Intelligence Data System (IDS) - Naval Air Staff Requirement (NASR) 1226.

Held by:The National Archives, Kew - Ministry of Defence
Date:28 January 1976 - 15 April 1977
Reference:DEFE 19/226
Subjects:Armed Forces (General Administration) | Navy | Weapons
 
It would be an F Mk-2A or maybe F Mk-3 as all of the F Mk-2s were upgraded IIRC.
 
I thought the biggest difference between mark two and mark three was the 'Blue Circle' radar fitted to the Mark two.
 

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