RAF TORNADO: Great Fighting Jets (1991)

[@rjds1800]

Remember loaning VHS videos like this from the local library and sitting in wrapped attention as a kid in the 90s.

[@user-mh2ho3mj4n]

No offense, I just have to help here. It's RAPT attention.😊

[@Darknamja]

The Tornado PC flight sim was my all-time favorite. Very realistic. 😉

[@nickhimaras9331]

Boy, you are so right!!

[@GoingSidewards]

The music. Oh how it brings memories flooding back of sitting in a small room with a “big” 32 tv in a corner of some aerospace museum as a kid.

[@slobodanmitic1354]

I really miss shows like this...

[@RB-bd5tz]

Right? A documentary talking only about the specifications, performance, and history of the plane, with no focus on female pilots for woke points, nor artificial sensationalist rivalry drama between two of the pilots ...

[@jungleboy1]

@@RB-bd5tz agreed.... we lost our ways somewhat. A shame.

[@MichelleMalsbury]

Impressive stats on this aircraft. Thank you for highlighting it here.

[@phuqdcreator]

Is it just me or does anybody else picture the pilot holding the controls with his knees whilst he sits with a Bic pen trying to wind the tape back into the cassette to continue the mission ? 😜

[@MothaLuva]

😂😂😂👍

[@danielvandersall6756]

Hey now, don't mock the time-honored BIC technique.

[@duellingscarguevara]

Always found a HB pencil did the best job, myself.😆

[@bsbsbsbjsbsbeb555]

M. M. M. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@MRCAGR1]

Once the mission profile was loaded, the cassette machine was subsequently used as the cockpit voice recorder, if I remember correctly from 45 years ago when I worked at the MRCA Central Design and Management Team.

[@Eo_Tunun]

I saw a pair of them operating out of Nörvenich airfield west of Cologne the other day. Still a great sight! Back in 1995, river Rhine had a pretty severe flooding. Scientists convinced the Bundesluftwaffe into spontaneously knocking up a reconnaissance exercise to collect data for evaluation of the flooding risks for individual areas. Several times each day, Luftwaffe Tornadoes photographed all of river Rhine, starting at lake Bodensee all the way down to its mouth at Rotterdam in the Netherlnds, each flight taking some 1½ hours. Nowadays satellites take care of such duties, but back then, only the Tornado could deliver such data with such accuracy at such pace.

[@DaveSCameron]

Thanks again sir, something decent to watch over the weekend now.

[@KelvinDiaz-x3l]

God damn this plane is rookie proof pinpoint accuracy crazy!

[@johnrycroft3906]

Thanks for this great video. Reminds me of all the years I worked on both variants of the Tornado.

[@skwb1973]

This was the aircraft, beside the Sepecat Jaguar, that triggered my obsession with planes.

[@larslaffen8893]

These kind of videos should be a wakeup call for European politicians. Defense spending was at a different level at the time these documentaries were produced. When you consider the level of readiness and excercise the forces were at in those times... Please increase spending, and support Ukraine, its not time to sleep. And our friends in the US; we need to stick together.

[@hoilst]

You know it's good when it starts with a dictionary definition.

[@-BuddyGuy]

I'd be really interested to hear what all those diagnostic and maintenance features were like for the technicians. They seem like they'd be a godsend when everything's working and an absolute ballache when something unexpected happened

[@hannosolo]

I thought that ballache was some French word until it clicked 😊. It was handy with the cmp to give a fault indication during see offs and checking for any hard latched indicators (won’t reset) on return. It also doubled-up as a fault indicator during csas tests.

[@swampeh]

​@@hannosoloyou do realise how only about 0.1% of people reading your post has any clue what CMP, CSAS and hard latches even mean 😂. CSAS BITE was an OTT over sensitive PITA! 🤬

[@swampeh]

OK I'll give you some of them are mentioned in the vid 😊

[@hannosolo]

@@swampeh I forgot how many abbrv’s we used on a daily basis without giving it a thought. By the username, were you at Marham - 617 / 27?

[@jaws666]

As Lord Vader himself would say..."Impressive..Most Impressive"

[@GaryScottPhotographer]

Inserts "cassette" :)

[@hannosolo]

But no Dolby NR.

[@AYYEPIC]

Can't wait for the Tornado IDS in Digital Combat Simulator!

[@kempmt1]

Are there any countries still operating Tornadoes or are they all out of service?

[@TJSATAN]

So a few years later did it get upgraded to cds for it's data computer?

[@ffotograffydd]

When I last worked on a Tornado Squadron in 1992 it was still tapes. No idea what happened later though.

[@deang5622]

Tapes worked fine. Data capacity was enough. Why bother with the expense of upgrading to CD if it provides no extra benefit? You have to remember, you can't just take out a cassette player which is outputting an analogue audio signal and replace it with a CDROM drive which is outputting a digital data signal.

[@The_Oracle]

Design oversight that the Tornado could not send out a Laser.

[@darrenmorgan870]

Only the British and the enemy knew it's secret parts.

[@pontiacGXPfan]

farewell, Tonka

[@hobsonbeeman7529]

The Bundeswehr had some pretty relaxed standards on hair cuts back then!

[@chrisp4170]

The commentary should have said, "early on, whilst it was secret, performance details were only known by the British, the Germans, the Italians and of course, the Russians...

[@lensman5762]

They were decent planes for the cold war era, primarily designed for low level attack, but their losses during first war with Iraq while carrying out low level JB-223 attacks on the runways, prompted a halt of the low level operations and Tornados were used at much higher altitude to avoid the effective Iraqi SAM cover. I believe that Britain lost 6 Tornados, and at least two more from the Saudi and Italian air forces. Today, this sort of planes don't stand a chance against a well coordinated air defence system.

[@robertstorey7476]

The JP 233 was shown up to be a poor weapon as it required the aircraft to fly straight and level down the centre of an enemy runway at 200ft.

[@ffotograffydd]

That was an issue with weapon delivery rather than the aircraft itself. It would still be a better option for its primary Cold War role than the current alternative, which failed miserably again in recent testing.

[@MRCAGR1]

I don’t think that SAM can track a target terrain following at 50 feet at speed. “Deployment required the aircraft to fly low, straight and level over an enemy airfield, and when over the runway the pods would dispense their payload. During the Gulf War, it was widely reported in the popular press that Tornados were shot down by anti-aircraft artillery fire and MANPADS during delivery of the JP233 munition.[3] In fact, none of the losses occurred during the attack phase of a JP233 mission.[citation needed] Only one aircraft was lost carrying the JP233, when Tornado ZA392 crashed into the ground approximately 16 km (10 mi) after delivering the weapon at low level; enemy fire was not reported and it was believed that this was an incident of controlled flight into terrain.[4] What alarmed the crews of British and Saudi Arabian Tornados using JP233 was that the aircraft was brightly illuminated at night by the exploding munitions.[5] Attacks using JP233 were suspended six days into the Gulf War, as the Iraqi Air Force was effectively flying no missions. With the increasing availability of standoff attack munitions capable of the same mission with little risk to the flight crew and aircraft, and the British entry into the Land Mines Treaty (which declares the HB-876 illegal), the JP233 has been withdrawn from service. Examples of the JP233 are in various museums.[6] The Imperial War Museum also has films, viewable online, of tests of the JP233 Airfield Attack System and Airfield Denial System.[7] The Cold War Gallery of the National Museum of the US Air Force has a JP233 on display, fitted to a Panavia Tornado GR1 aircraft.[8]”

[@richardhoffmann179]

The weapon was designed for the shorter Warsaw Pact airfields in East Germany, whereas the Iraqi runways were massive in comparison. ​@@ffotograffydd

[@darrendavies7290]

The music dun my head in and can't watch it it a shame

[@shaunmcclory8117]

Nooo its back!🙉🙉🙉

[@CarlosMorales-on1hq]

this aircraft it similar to the f15!!! right?

[@philipcrabtree1679]

Tornado ADV was a complete failure the IDS variant did prove itself in Gulf War 1

[@hannosolo]

T’was rumoured at the time that the F3 was to ACM what Lionel Blair was to arc welding.

[@gustavzollernmakinen1516]

Tornado was nothing but an under performing F-14, the three partners, UK-Germany-Italy could have all tweaked the F-14 for additional features and produced it in Europe and saved all the development costs, and ended up with a much better plane.

[@tomh9807]

Yeah but then the germans would be even more dependend on the US in terms of parts. Just look at the Tomcats which are rotting in IRAN because the US does not deliver parts there for well known reasons. Which Army with brains wants that? And by the way a plane is only as good as the crew sitting in it. I think the fact alone that the engine can be switched way faster than in a F 18 or F16 or any other US Fighters just shows how well planned and manufactured the Tornado is . Another fact is that the M1 A2 Abrams has a german stabilizer build in for the cannon so it can stay focused on the target while driving at max speed. It already was developed in the 60's for the Leopard , which is still the worlds best tank so stop being so snobby and arrogant.

[@gustavzollernmakinen1516]

@@tomh9807 Iran was and is under sanctions, that is why its Tomcats are not airworthy, not because the Grumman company was dragging its feet to deliver spare parts. The tri-national European countries (or more) could have all produced the spare parts for their Tomcat in their own countries (like they do with the F-16s), this is not even an issue comparable to Iran's case.

[@tomh9807]

@@gustavzollernmakinen1516 In regards of Iran and their sanctions, that is exactly what I meant if you read my comment properly. (For known reasons). I am not so sure if the US allows the tri-national states to manufactuer their own spare parts for their (US) fighters. Usually they want to profit from that, too. Do they if other countries produce them? And i did not mention anything about Grumman, did i ?

[@gustavzollernmakinen1516]

​@@tomh9807 Various European countries manufacture spare parts of F-16, so yeah the US does allow manufacture of spare parts of US designed fighters, overseas. *shocker* : Belgium, The Nederlands, Denmark had manufacturing facilities which even produced parts for the USAF and other non-European F-16s, this was part of the famous "deal of the century" F-16 deal. Turkey manufactured F-16s for its own air force (300+ aircraft) and for Egypt, in Turkey. Of course, the original US manufacturer Lockheed Martin was paid fees/Royalty.

[@tomh9807]

@@gustavzollernmakinen1516 Yes that was 1975. Also Norway was involved, too. They all together purchased 348 F16 Fighting Falcons back then. But as far as I know these are build by General Dynamics not Grumman?

[@ehmoudfahmy2332]

Bad music 🎶😔😞🎵

[@rodolfohernandez3303]

It's not that bad, i like the music score when Italy's Tornado is shown

[@shaunmcclory8117]

I was about to switch off after around 1min due to the God awful music along with the naration, thankfully it stopped, fingers crossed it was just for the intro!

[@lowpinglag]

Welcome to what television was like in the 1990's haha.

[@andreinarangel6227]

Meh. Much ado about not much of a plane. Pretty average. The F111 got, plane by plane, a much much higher "kill" score in the Gulf War. In the AAW.....well, bless the Tornado's heart, it just could not do much.

[@davequinn2369]

Blue on Blue kills didnt help.

[@mohammedsaysrashid3587]

Excellent documentary coverage video about Tornado 🌪 aircraft..it's characteristics ,it's historical background designed & historical background creation of interception & dogfights aircraft assaults doctrine ..since first world War ,WW2 & earlier years of cold War... this project were participating of Germany 🇩🇪, Italy 🇮🇹 & Britain 🇬🇧 in this project..that designed standard designs in additionally special designs for each country ..US cooperating with them..excellent informative video about Tornado 🌪 airplanes ✈️..Mike Guardia channel always selected interesting, enjoyed documentaries allot thanks

[@darrendavies7290]

The music dun my head in and can't watch it it a shame

[@jaws666]

Sad to think this FANTASTIC airplane is now OUT of service.

[@kennethlane3896]

I really enjoy binge watching your videos. Thank you.

[@brianfearn4246]

I did see video a while back showing loads of scraped tornadoes with all the fuselage mid sections piled up on top of one another. I would imagine that those were victims off cut backs and closed down RAF Stations.

[@Scott11078]

Well that's sad to hear they had a fate similar to most of the Tomcat fleet.

[@burntorangeak]

You know someone loaded am Ozzy tape into the flight computer...

[@swampeh]

RAF Tornado F3 ADV Aircrew didn't go through TTTE/Cottesmore, they all went through the OCU at Coningsby.. 229OCU which took on the 56(R) SQN nameplate when the 56(F) Phantoms at Wattisham were scrapped.

[@USNRaptor]

Here is the Weekday Wings version if anyone is interested in hearing the differences between the original narrator & music and the American narrator & music: kzbin.info/www/bejne/faewfWl7rpuYntU

[@MikeGuardiaAuthor]

Cheers, Rap. Always good to hear from you. 👍 Interesting to see how many of these latter-day air power docs got re-edited into the 90s-era "Wings".

[@USNRaptor]

@@MikeGuardiaAuthor This has become an all-day project. Check out my updated website. Gave you a mention in the Latest Update notes near the bottom. Glad to see you found the original Tornado video.

[@dutchbrotherfan1284]

Right , I’m building a 1/32 scale Tornado called Foxy Killer as I’m listening to this. Of course there’s probably 10 more hours involved in the build , so I’ll continue researching you tube for hobby . Nonetheless this is a brilliant episode.

[@movax20h]

Amazing engineering, the modularity is also super cool.

[@ianbeedles1329]

Less than 2 minutes into this video and they get their facts wrong! In 1990/91, all British Armed Forces in the Gulf region during the Liberation of Kuwait (AKA "1st Gulf War") operated under the codename "Operation Granby" (Op Granby for short)! "Desert Shield/Desert Storm/Desert Saber" were the names the Americans gave to their part in the war.

[@BenState]

CSAS is "Control and Stability Augmentation System" not, Command.

[@andrewbarten7347]

The reverse thrust was thought up by the Italians, no doubt. 😉

[@Karyovin]

This was one of the 3 TimeLife VHS' I had of this series, Stealth, F-14 and this. This is still my definitive source of video for showing what the Tornado can do and one of the few places you can see the ejector arms pushing the Skyflashes away Also the narrator sounds like Captain Goto from the Original Patlabor 2 dub

[@louiswilkins9624]

Excellent aircraft

[@tmobaile1187]

I LOVE THIS JET SO MUCH MORE THAN ANY AOUTHER

[@nicholashall6850]

Is the narrator saying attitude not altitude? 18:55

[@allgood6760]

Cool plane! ✈️

[@alexanderleach3365]

I love the Tornado.

[@shaunmcclory8117]

180rounds? Surely that cant be right? Magazine would be empty in seconds!?🤔

[@RB-bd5tz]

I've checked several sources, and it is right. Yes, only seconds of firing - but that's been the case for fighter guns from WW1 through today. Press that trigger only when you're darn sure!

[@Fastbikkel]

Using bursts one can use that amount quite well.

[@shaunmcclory8117]

@@Fastbikkel i guess it is irrelevant as i bet nobody ever had any chance/reason to use the thing anyway! Probably didn't even used to fill the magazine!

[@conroypawgmail]

You don't need much. That 27mm Mauser hits hard. It won't take more than a few hits and whatever is in front of you won't be a problem for long.

[@duellingscarguevara]

The A10 has 10x that amount, and uses it in @17 seconds.

[@norman191000]

20:29 what a great dark ambient music here.

[@desidesigning]

Vertical lift and hover for a jet is a win-win

[@bsbsbsbjsbsbeb555]

نسيا. اتد

[@hinglemccringle5939]

Tornado F-3 ADV was a subpar air-to-air machine. GR4 was good but not as good as F-111

[@conroypawgmail]

True, but compared to what else the RAF had on hand, the F3 was about as good as it got. The Lightning, while very fast and a delight to fly, couldn't carry much of a worthwhile payload and had a painfully short combat radius. The F-4 Phantom II was getting up in age and was still fairly thirsty, despite the Spey engines. What else could they have fielded in the Air Superiority / Interception role?

[@Scott11078]

I'm a huge fan of the Tomcat, and became an even bigger fan while I was in the Navy and REALLY got to see what they could do. From my understanding if the fight didn't involve AIM-54's the Tomcat crew had to be on top of their game or the Tornadoes would give them a nasty surprise, so it couldn't have been that bad. I'd say it sucked for the period of time it didn't have its radar and just had ballast in its nose. But once it became whole it became a force to respect.

[@hinglemccringle5939]

@@conroypawgmail they could have purchased F15‘s with the money they used to develop the F3 variant. Perhaps F18 or F16 to reduce costs. Water under the bridge now as Typhoon is a capable AA machine

[@bikerkermit]

@@hinglemccringle5939 I remember visiting an RAF base while in the Cadets in the early 90s. They had an AA exercise running with the USAF F15 vs the RAF F3s - the F3s won convincingly (apparently)

[@darrendavies7290]

The music dun my head in and can't watch it it a shame

[@darrendavies7290]

The music dun my head in and can't watch it it a shame

[@darrendavies7290]

The music dun my head in and can't watch it it a shame

[@darrendavies7290]

The music dun my head in and can't watch it it a shame