Tornado's FINal Gear Down - RAF Marham

#Tornado #TornadoDiamondNine #TornadoFinale #TornadoRetirement #RAFMarham #Tonka

Aircraft:-
ZD716 DH tail , Callsign 'Tornado 94' - Special scheme '31 Squadron Tornado 1984-2019' 'Panavia Tornado GR' 'Gold Stars' tail.
ZA553 045 Callsign 'Tornado 95'
ZA587 055 Callsign 'Tornado 93'
ZG752 --- Callsign 'Tornado 91' - Special camouflage scheme 'Tornado 1984-2019'.
ZD744 Tail 092 Callsign 'Tornado 92'
ZA601 Tail 066 Callsign 'Tornado 99'
ZG791 Tail 137 Callsign 'Tornado 98'
ZA542 Tail 035 Callsign 'Tornado 96'
ZG771 Callsign 'Tornado 97' - Special scheme '1916-2016 RAF Marham'
ZD848 Tail 109 Callsign 'Tornado 21'
ZA463 Tail 028 Callsign'Tornado 22'

BAe Hawk T1A XX198, Tail code CH, Callsign 'Pirate 10' - 100 Squadron, RAF Leeming

The RAF campaign to celebrate the much loved and now retired Tornado aircraft continued with a farewell flypast of nine aircraft over East Anglia, on Thursday 28th February 2019.

Following the hugely popular series of Finale flypasts over the UK the previous week, the Tornado force carried out a sortie over Lincolnshire with nine aircraft from its base at RAF Marham in Norfolk. Thousands of onlookers gathered along the route to see the iconic jet for the last time.

The driving force behind the farewell activities, Group Captain Ian ‘Cab’ Townsend, RAF Marham Station Commander, said:

“The response to last week’s FINale flypasts reflects the high regard with which the aircraft is held by the UK public. With barely a fortnight before the disbandment parade for the two remaining Squadrons this was our opportunity to say thank you to all those who have supported Tornado since she entered service”

The route from the Tornado’s home at RAF Marham took them over College Hall at RAF Cranwell where a graduation parade for new officers had taken place. Group Captain Ian ‘Cab’ Townsend added:

“It is sobering to think that most of the officers graduating today would not have been born when Tornado first entered service in 1979. Sad though it is, the time is right for Tornado to retire and hand the baton of UK Combat Air capability to the Typhoon and F35B Lightning, both exceptional aircraft able to meet the challenges of future warfare.”

In the immediate term, the Tornados will be replaced by new weapons capabilities for the Typhoon jet. Under ‘Project Centurion’, worth £425m over the past three years, the Typhoon now has deep strike cruise missile Storm Shadow, air-to-air missile Meteor and the precision attack missile Brimstone at their disposal.

The RAF’s new fleet of F-35 Lightning jets will form the backbone of the UK’s combat air fleet alongside the Typhoon jets in the coming years.

The Tornado was officially retired from service at the end of March 2019.

Nicknamed the "Tonka” and also 'the Mighty FIN', the aircraft’s first use in live operations was during the Gulf War in 1991, when 60 Tornado GR1s were deployed from bases in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

Two years later they were upgraded to the GR4 model, which has been used ever since over the skies of Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

The Tornado was on almost continuous operations since deploying on Operation GRANBY in 1990 returning to the UK on 2 March 1991. They deployed on Op JURAL, the southern Iraq No-fly Zone, in August 1992 and maintained a presence in the Middle East until withdrawn from Iraq on 31 May 2009. There was a short gap until they redeployed to Kandahar in Afghanistan as part of Op HERRICK on 6 July 2009 until their end of mission and return to the UK in November 2014. The Tornado was also used in Kosovo in 1999 and in March 2011 it flew against targets inside Libya. Flying 3000 miles from its base at RAF Marham these missions were described as "the longest-range bombing mission conducted by the RAF since the Falklands conflict”.

RAF Tornado's flew 185603 hours on operations from 1990 until the final mission on 31 January 2018.

Tornado Force air strikes in Syria began on 2 December 2015.

Over 100 Operational Commendations and 7 State Awards were awarded to Tornado detachment personnel for their efforts on Op SHADER.

The Tornado deployment on Op SHADER began with the first aircraft arriving in RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus on 12 August 2014, and the first operational sortie was flown over Iraq the following day.

41 different Tornado aircraft flew in support of Op SHADER and the deployed force was commanded by seven different OCs.

Every member of the Tornado force completed four Op SHADER detachments and each Tornado engineer spent over 365 days on Op SHADER on average (some over 600).

Music - 'Run until your wings grow' - Late Night Feeler.

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