stealth Tornado

I think the Tornado is quicker at low level than the buc depending on the configuration of the Tornado. As you know the buc could carry some of its weapons in its internal bomb bay and was apparently a very smooth ride at its operational altitude.

The Tornado is supposed to be one of the fastest aircraft in the world at sea level ( I remember reading somewhere even faster than the Mig 25 Foxbat....at sea level don't forget before we have all the replies saying oh no its not!) providing it is in a clean state.....Start hanging bits of bombs and stuff and it has to slow down in order to prevent damage to the weapon's.

Speaking of the Buc......!

That reminds me of a story I heard from an ATC bloke I knew when I was based at Raf Valley in the early 80's. The Bucanneers used to use Valley as a target as they could come in low level from the irish sea and do a simulated airfield attack. On one of these attacks one of the buc's asked for permission to do an attack followed by a beat up of the airfield as he was doing a flyby for a passing out parade of a new group of pilots.

The ATC bloke replied to the Buc "Clear for overflight of Valley at 80Ft down runway 25"!

Came the ice cool reply " Roger......Climibing........!!!!"

Another Buc trick was when the Buc's and Vulcans used to take part in the Red Flag Exercises a lone vulcan used to go in initially at high level then, once it reached the target area, go down to low level to start its attack run.

This was all picked up by the ground radars and passed on to the waiting fighters who were defending the areas. So in would go the fighters expecting just one target however the radars had not picked up the 3 Bucs which had been hiding beneath the Vulcan at very close range so as to appear as one big radar return!

So once near the target there was suddenly 4 inbounds all converging at once! Ok the fighters might get one or two but the Bucs ain't no slouch at low level and this little trick paid off quite a few time's

Sorry if I went off the thread a bit but I think it was worth swinging the old sandbag.....!

Sv Out....!

I remember a TV news report from one of the Red Flags where the Bucc's took part, 1978 I think, and it showed footage that must have been shot from a ground control station or something because as you saw a Buccaneer hurtling in directly towards the camera position, weaving and banking furiously, its wingtips barely clearing the ground you heard an American voice incredulously going "Jeeezus christ! Look at that guy fly!" I remember being awestruck by this and feeling immensely proud and patriotic, I was 13 at the time and the memory of it is as clear as ever.

The report went on that the Intercepting F-15 pilots complained that the engagement wasn't fair because the Buccaneers had gone too low, too fast and flew too wildly for them to engage them, even then I remember thinking 'Isn't that the point?'

Several years before this, when the RAF was faced with acquiring the Buccaneer after the cancellation of the F-111K, a senior USAF official was quoted as saying "If the RAF flies the Buccaneer in the '70's it will earn the scorn of its enemies and the pity of its friends, the USAF disposed of aircraft of this type a decade ago". Well, he got that wrong, as it was proven that, on low level attak profiles as flown at Red Flag, the Bucc turned out to be superior to the F-111E (in speed, ride and manouverability), that was then the standard USAF light bomber.

[edit on 15-10-2005 by waynos]

A recent Aviation Week article, described how the RAF is experimenting with bits and pieces of stealth added to the Tornado in order to reduce it's radar return.

The unexpected result, was that the radar return is no longer identifiable as a Tornado.

The Tornado's primary mission still remains low altitude attack of enemy airfields.

The Tornado entered service in 1979, about 10 years before the Chinese JH-7. The JH-7 design effort started around 1970, and was flying in 1988.

Oddly enough, the Chinese JH-7 uses British Rolls Royce Sprey engines. This is one of the very few items that the Chinese have been unable to reverse engineer, and produce on their own. A further purchase of engines was made, and a co-production contract was agreed upon.

Waynos, as you are roughly the same age as me ( I joined the RAF aged 16 in 1979! ) do you remember a recruitment film featuring 12 Sqn buccaneers set to "Spirals" by Vangelis?

That film made me join up!!!!!!!

Sv Out.......!

No I never saw that, I wish I had.

ZPE StarPilot; that article you are describing sounds like the same thing that SV and I were discussing. If it is does it say whether this work was continued or was it only done during GW1? Then again maybe that information is classified?

Just for accuracies sake the Tornado first entered service (as the GR 1 and IDS) in 1982.

Regarding the Spey engine, this could be a handicap for the JH-7 in the modern world. Although a superb engine in its day, It was the powerplant of the 1964 Buccaneer S.2 and 1967 F-4K and F-4M Phantom and is thus several generations behind current technology.

Waynos, most of the kit fitted during GW1 to the F3's and GR1's was only fitted as an ad hoc thing. A lot of it was removed once normal service was resumed and some was either refitted upon the next major service intervel or ,in the case of the tiles down the intake's, not at all!

The test we did to test the response of the engines to ingesting some of the tiles was highly technical.......lob a few down the intake and see what happen's!

Sv Out........!

LOL! Yeah, these things are always so damn scientific!

Thanks.

thanks for the awesome reply before waynos,you answered all my questions!!

it'd be cool to see some of these red flag exercises.. i wonder if they ever release footage of these red flag exercises that wud be cool to see.

Wow..so they have taken measures to make the tornado more stealthy,makes you wonder what BAE were doing with that concept aircraft.. i can't remember the exact name of it, it got made public a few years ago, they were trying to make a stealthy airframe or something

it'd be daft to put all that research to waste!

I've been on quite a few red, green and maple flag exercises and seen quite a lot of footage of the various doffights and weapon release video's but I don't think they were for general release....!

It was mainly to show the groundcrew what all the long sleepless nights in the hangers and early mornings on the flightline were for!

Clashrock: I think the Aircraft you were refering to was the Replica programme which was a design and material study by Bae at Warton.

Don't know what became of it but there are a lot of "sightings" of strange trianglular aircraft around that particular part of england however most of them are probably of the Typhoon undergoing test's!

Sv Out....!

I remember seeing that Bucaneer footage. There was some kind've 'lock on' glyph on the screent that was completely failing to nail the Bucaneer as it weaved on in trailing a plume of dust and the operators were all yelping with excitement. Definately the most awesome piece of Bucaneer footage I've ever seen. I would love to see it again. A MoD mate once told me thatt the Bucaneer's airframe was so strong it could actually punch through wave tops whilst flying low at sea.

Bunny Burners, that is funny. Didn't realise the GR.4 was a hangar queen though.

Sorry, but I am going back to topic . Here is that Tornado 2000 description:

external image

Mod Edit: Reduce image Size

[edit on 10/17/05 by FredT]

I like the tornado but have always wondered why it hasn't got a internal bomb bay. Ok nothing massive but big enough for a few lgb's or missiles.

Thanks for that Matej, great stuff

Regarding the Tornado and its lack of an internal bomb bay. This was purely down to keeping the aircraft as small as possible. Smaller means lighter, and also cheaper and given Britains record prior to 1969 of scrapping military aircraft programmes to save money, the importance of this should npot be underestimated. Such was the atmosphere in Britain at the time that the MRCA (as it was called back then) was almost expected to be cancelled, with all the talk being about if it enters production and service with the RAF, rather than when.

For example, the Tornado's direct ancestor and complete equivalent as far as intended RAF service goes, was the TSR.2 (meaning Tactical Strike and Recconaissance, mach 2) strike aircraft, which was supposed to enter service as the BAC Eagle GR.1.

Now the TSR 2 had an internal bomb bay and was 90ft long, compared to the Tornado's 54ft, and yet the two aircraft had the same payload, range and performance (TSR was a little faster). Those missing 36ft from the Tornado not only equated to millions & millions of pounds (billions in todays money) but also made the MRCA attractice to Germany and Italy, which is how it got made of course.

Originally posted by Silentvulcan
Going back to the intakes waynos did you know that all varients of the Tornado were designed and fitted with supersonic intakes which involved movable ramps inside the intake to speed up or slow down the incoming air!

- (Sorry if I've taken you the wrong way Sv; I'm sure you amongst others know this, but just so it is obvious to all).

Some planes use a cheaper fixed inlet design, for instance the B1b (which also incidentally artificially restricts the top speed of those planes) but either that or a variable inlet geometry is a feature of all supersonic aircraft the airflow must be slowed down as jet engines can't handle supersonic air-flow; excepting the latest highly specialised scram-jet engines.

Smoothing and slowing the airflow to the most efficient level for the engine to handle is the job of the variable intakes in all aircraft with them.

All of these ramps were inhibited on the GR1 and, (I think) the GR4 so as to prevent over zelous pilots from exceeding the speed of sound and overstressing the external equipment attached to the A/C.

-
That makes sense; stop the guys playing (and grossly shortening life-spans) when the ability isn't needed - and keep the option to 'put the fuses back in' for when it is needed.

Did u seen any photos which proved that Tornado's outboard pylon carried some weapon with its maximun backward angle.

Well, really the Tornado doesn't carry weapons as such on its outboard pylons, but these photo's show the pylons loaded with the wings fully swept;

Originally posted by waynos
Well, really the Tornado doesn't carry weapons as such on its outboard pylons, but these photo's show the pylons loaded with the wings fully swept;

wow! It's really cool! where did u get these two pictures? please give me a link,I really hope to get bigger photos.By the way, I think that planform is better to be a proving.

[edit on 17-10-2005 by emile]

[edit on 18-10-2005 by emile]

More info on current stealth Tornado:

The article says it's goal was to lower the radar signature relative to it's towed decoy.

The goal was not to turn a Tornado into a stealth aircraft, but to reduce the RCS enough to improve the effectiveness of its towed-decoy. Developers here believe spending money on the selective use of the technology will be a cheaper way to make Tornados more survivable than fitting the aircraft with a higher power decoy.

www.aviationnow.com... 3Daw_document%26article%3D100305p06

I don't know if you can get to all the Aviation Week links I might post, some require logging in, sometimes not. A cut and paste will work, but some are rather long.

The EADS outfit is also working on optical signature reduction for UCAV's.

Mod Edit: Fixed Link.


[edit on 17/10/2005 by Mirthful Me]

Originally posted by Figher Master FIN
The idea is nice... But i don't think that this will be a new model that the British RAF will start to use... They are gona get F-22 aren't they, so waht's the point making an own stealth model...?

British aircraft companies ceased becouse of american aircraft entering british service ,Example-the FG1/FGR2 Spey Phantom. Thanks to the yanks, the british aircraft engineers lost thier jobs, i also heard that when the Phantom retired in 1992, they were all scrapped even if they were still airworthy though only about 5 Spey Phantoms exist in the world today.
(The Spey Phantoms not only were scrapped becouse of the age/strategic arms limitation treaty, there is also a roumour they were destroyed becouse the Phantom is an american plane so it was an act of revenge too!).

RULE BRITANIA! NEVER NEVER NEVER SHALL BE SLAVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway i guess Europe and other nations now want to be independant from all this americanisim taking over the world. Everyone wants thier own space and individuality, so i agree they should go ahead and do what they want to do instead of having someone elses stuff and being like 'sheep'.

Even though we have the Eurofighter ,This Stealth Tornado looks boss and should proceed.

PIMP MY RIDE MEETS JET FIGHTERS!
[edit on 2-11-2005 by Browno]

[edit on 2-11-2005 by Browno]

[edit on 2-11-2005 by Browno]

Originally posted by Browno

British aircraft companies ceased becouse of american aircraft entering british service ,Example-the FG1/FGR2 Spey Phantom. Thanks to the yanks, the british aircraft engineers lost thier jobs,

You can't blame American aircraft, it was the British Government that bought them, and forced all the UK companies to merge (good move) and then cancelled all the major programmes once they did merge (bad move)

(The Spey Phantoms not only were scrapped becouse of the age/strategic arms limitation treaty, there is also a roumour they were destroyed becouse the Phantom is an american plane so it was an act of revenge too!).

RULE BRITANIA! NEVER NEVER NEVER SHALL BE SLAVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I am utterly speechless, what can I say? except,