F-14 Tomcat to Tornado F2 & F3 | Pete Legg (In-Person Part 2)

Pete Legg shares what it was like coming from flying the F-14A with VF-101 on his exchange tour and back to the RAF to fly the Tornado F2 and F3!
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[@Aircrewinterview]

Pick up some of our merch - www.teepublic.com/user/aircrew-interview

[@JackRoadkill]

He's a bit of a boy, this chap, isn't he?! Superb stories and a great way of telling them.

[@Aircrewinterview]

Ha yeah. Proper legend.

[@karen12359339]

What a character seems like a guy who knows how to have fun

[@engineer17151]

What a great bloke ... salt of the earth, and tells a good story. Be great to have a pint with I'd bet. True Brit.

[@beechbonanza3895]

Leggy! Flew with you at Coningsby 229 OCU, an American counterpart-me and Casper. I trained in the Tomcat at Miramar and later at Oceana. Fentress field is diabolical. Always a tailwind while I was bouncing there. Negative training in my experience. Hats off to all my east coast brethren that successfully carrier qualified in the Tomcat.

[@andyharding1514]

for the benefit of non-Brits, British Military projects at the time had code names called the "Rainbow Codes" in the format "Colour Thing" - eg Yellow Sun. the joke about the delayed F2 radar being replaced by a lump of concrete, was that it got nicknamed "Blue Circle" after a brand of cement.

[@montybrewster7]

What a great dinner guest pete would make. Clearly a great down to earth bloke & a great story teller. Thanks for another great couple of interviews mike.

[@Aircrewinterview]

Cheers

[@shirleydrury5565]

Love this guy he tells it like it is top bloke. Thank you both for sharing this interview with us regards😊😊❤❤

[@TowGunner]

I watch a lot of Tomcat videos so this was recommended. Watched part 1 and 2. Fantastic interview!

[@Aircrewinterview]

Cheers

[@P-J-W-777]

I believe the F-14 b and onward they fixed that low level speed limitation with the new engines. Great conversation about some wonderful history.

[@robbmaclean]

What a brilliant interview! Ranks as one of your best.

[@Aircrewinterview]

Cheers!

[@Odysseuss.]

Watched a F3 at LEU come in swept, after much excitement took the last RHAG. Brave aircrew who, probably like everyone else watching, didn't realise how far the rhag would stretch towards the end of the runway the berm, fence and road beyond!. All's well that ends well.

[@johnnunn8688]

Do you recall how much sweep?

[@Odysseuss.]

@@johnnunn8688 full.

[@mlusiak]

Lovely chap, thank you for doing those interviews :)

[@Aircrewinterview]

Our pleasure!

[@chrissmith8773]

Top bloke. Great stories. 👍

[@Aircrewinterview]

Thanks 👍

[@neilhurt1992]

Pete Legg, love the stories, thank you sir. Never met you whilst I was in the airforce, looks like you had a bloody good time! Didn't know you flew commercial. I left in 1984 and went to SHAPE in Belgium where I flew with a Vietnam vet who took F4s 'up north' in the 70s. We took our little 172s down to Luxembourg to save money on fuel...Lots of fun!

[@petermallm149]

Loved listening to him 👍👍👍

[@guypeasley]

A very understated and amusing Guy!

[@davidwallace5831]

That was brilliant! Really good fun - could have listened to that all night. Thank you!

[@Aircrewinterview]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@pakkelly]

Very interesting insights into two iconic swing wing warplanes. Thank you.

[@Aircrewinterview]

Cheers

[@swisssteve253]

Legend!

[@JBSmoke1]

Great interview!

[@Aircrewinterview]

Thanks.

[@gazzercoleman4304]

Good video - one of the best yet 👍

[@Aircrewinterview]

Thanks!

[@billb7876]

Nice bloke and very interesting to boot

[@Aircrewinterview]

Sure is

[@thefrecklepuny]

I must say that Pete seems a realy nice chap and has a most soothing voice! If the auto wing sweep on the two seater Tornado F2/F3 was problematic, what must it have been like on the much less sophisticated single seat MiG-23???

[@2ZZGE100]

MIG-23 also had manual sweep. Only Tomcat had a very smart system which fed information for many sensors across the airframe and fed it back into the CADC about AoA, altitude, airspeed etc. and then swept the wings back really fast even when it was under very high G-load. They were testing the wing sweep even at 10g back in the early 70s as one of the test pilots attested to.

[@billb7876]

Remember the Tornado also had its BITE system (built in test equipment) so like your F14 it did the full range of controls etc etc but sadly there was so many problems picked (LED hard latches) up they ended up doing them after the flight and gave up completely after that lol.

[@mikelynn4754]

Best interview yet 😃

[@Aircrewinterview]

Cheers!

[@OwainPreece-ie6bb]

Great interview, really enjoyed listening to and learning from Pete 👍

[@Aircrewinterview]

Cheers

[@henrikerdland578]

Please let us know more about flying the JA-37 Viggen.

[@ilejovcevski79]

I fully understand you had to score a small victory for the Tornado there at the end, but just for the record, a Tomcat laden with 4 Sparrows and 4 Winders would happily go over 750 knots down low, as in sea level, and over 825 knots if completely clean. I mean, these were one of the few fighters at the time that could chase (though not necessarily catch) F-111s in the weeds. However, most of the time, especially from the early 80's onwards, they would always fly with conformal fuel tanks, that were not to be dropped unless in an emergency, and this would lower their top speed (down low) to somewhere in the 700-ish knots. P.S. love the interview! One of my favorite chaps to be on the show so far.

[@Aircrewinterview]

Many thanks

[@ilejovcevski79]

@@Aircrewinterview my pleasure, keep them coming!

[@joseherculano6302]

Tomcats forever.

[@appstratum9747]

Great interview. Lovely guy.

[@Aircrewinterview]

Cheers

[@StGene22494]

6:40 Funnily enough, the Tomact’s initial engines were also designed for a bomber.

[@martinhowell3475]

I'd watch a few interviews with the aircraft engineers & fitters, you'd be working overtime with the beep machine mind.

[@Aircrewinterview]

😂

[@manuwilson4695]

Great guy!...no pretense or bullshit.👍

[@forsdykemontague1017]

SENGO was Hobart, went on to be an AVM, not bad for an Eng. !

[@johnnunn8688]

Current CAS is an engineer! Also not bad.

[@billb7876]

Dhahran was interesting to say the least we are there with the bombers

[@sichere]

So who flew their Tonka inverted over RAF Odium in 1985 ?

[@mickhorsley3169]

Of course not. I'm not suggesting he's named but it was a very unusual way to take command of a squadron that I think warrants exploration.

[@TheMunt2000]

nice interview, good to hear the 787 is great up front, pity its shithouse for passengers :D

[@plghsamuel]

Super guy. Super ordinary (but he’s not at all ordinary!)

[@Ian-Saxon]

Haaa. Always knew the GR mud mover was superior to the F variant Mike 😉🫡. Brilliant interview lads. Thank you.

[@Aircrewinterview]

I don't think I will ever win the argument :\ Cheers

[@jjsmallpiece9234]

While clearly an F2/F3 Tornado is/was not a fighter similar to and F16 etc - surely that isn't the point. A close in fight was never expected. It was my understanding that the point of a Tornado 'fighter' was to go and loiter to the north of Scotland (with tanker support) to intercept Russian Bear bombers coming down from Russia trying to launch air to ground missiles against the UK or to attack NATO shipping in the Atlantic. At that range from Russia the Bears wouldn't have fighter escorts - so the Tornados would not be fighting against Fulcrums or Flankers etc

[@davidsmith8997]

Yeah, the F1&2 were pretty shit. It eventually became a relatively capable interceptor when combined with strong tactics. Funny that the brass wanted the truth, no ranks, and then pulled rank- some things never change!

[@Odysseuss.]

F3 was scrapped just as it reached it's peak.

[@Siddich]

@@Odysseuss.not a very high peak though…

[@SworBeyE16]

@@Odysseuss.Well it’s peak was still nowhere near the capability of the tranche 1 typhoon

[@SworBeyE16]

@and321now 100%. Its amazing the ADV Tornado variant was ever given serious consideration seeing as the Americans had tried and failed to do the exact same thing with the F-111. I think a British F-14, F-15 or F-16 with domestically produced engines, avionics, etc (like the F-4) would have been a much, much more sensible option and almost certainly cheaper in the long run.

[@EvoraGT430]

Never, ever believe that story about rank-tabs removed!

[@memonk11]

It’s more than a little shocking to hear a Brit pilot being honest about the Tornado.

[@lonpfrb]

If you prefer dishonesty or just ignorance you need to speak to politicians...

[@memonk11]

@@lonpfrb Or every other Tornado pilot on Earth.

[@lonpfrb]

@@memonk11 In the MoD procurement process it is the politicians who make decisions such as BAE should make us a Tornado variant not the aircrew who have to make the best of what they are given. Pete's tale of exchange to fly F-14 makes it clear that the USN had a better procurement and better resulting aircraft. Also that the exchange program is effective in breaking any local thinking with a dose of reality...

[@memonk11]

@@lonpfrb Which has exactly zero to do with what I've said.

[@mickhorsley3169]

I can't believe you let him just skip over taking over 43 after the previous boss was sacked. That's not a normal situation!

[@johnnunn8688]

You want the sacked boss to be embarrassed on here?