Tornado To Be Axed

Author
Discussion

telecat

Original Poster:

8,528 posts

240 months

Monday 2nd April 2018
quotequote all
MOD in another Cost cutting exercise that will cut our capability or can the Typhoon cope until the F-35 comes along? Personally I'd love to see the older Tranche Typhoon's do more Ground attack. It can carry the loads, just needs more capability in launching them. I also feel the 35 just isn't a GA aircraft.

Eric Mc

121,776 posts

264 months

Monday 2nd April 2018
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I thought it was well known that 2018 was the last year for the Tornado in RAF service?

frodo_monkey

670 posts

195 months

Monday 2nd April 2018
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telecat said:
MOD in another Cost cutting exercise that will cut our capability or can the Typhoon cope until the F-35 comes along? Personally I'd love to see the older Tranche Typhoon's do more Ground attack. It can carry the loads, just needs more capability in launching them. I also feel the 35 just isn't a GA aircraft.
No point in persevering with Tranche 1 etc Typhoons, obsolete and can’t be upgraded to be like a later aircraft as the airframe is different. Better sticking them all on Q!

Tornado is great at air to ground, but definitely on its last legs. I know people talk about the Germans and Saudis running their fleets on, but we’ve beat the crap out of ours relative to theirs - double the average hours. Most of ours are at/above 7000 hours!

F35 will be fine, as will Typhoon once CENTURION delivers.

Tony1963

4,699 posts

161 months

Monday 2nd April 2018
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Eric Mc said:
I thought it was well known that 2018 was the last year for the Tornado in RAF service?
As far as I know, the retirement of the Tornado is scheduled for March 2019.

I'm sure the powers that be know what they're doing. The aircraft are very old now, and have served well.

Typhoon? Well I suppose if we were to face a strong enemy alone we could be in trouble. That's unlikely.

Eric Mc

121,776 posts

264 months

Monday 2nd April 2018
quotequote all
They are getting a bit ancient. Even though they had a number of major upgrades over their lives, the basic airframes are mostly over 30 years old with iots of hours (as described above).

As usual, the problem is that the replacement will be in far fewer numbers which, even though they are more modern and capable, they can't be everywhere.

tight5

2,747 posts

158 months

Monday 2nd April 2018
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Tweet from OC 31 Sqn

"Exactly one year left to out of Service date for the Tornado GR4 - hack!"

Posted 31 March.



Kccv23highliftcam

1,783 posts

74 months

Monday 2nd April 2018
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The real issue, to my tired eyes, is replacing two decision makers with one in the ground attack role.

I believe Rafale was changed to the two seat configuration for ground attack by the French due to operational experience.

Of course BAE have continued to pursue Typhoon as single seat, hopefully this will not lead to fratricide or worse.

As for F35 being "just fine" rofl

aeropilot

34,297 posts

226 months

Monday 2nd April 2018
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Kccv23highliftcam said:
As for F35 being "just fine" rofl
Indeed..... have another laugh

ecsrobin

17,018 posts

164 months

Monday 2nd April 2018
quotequote all
I’m sure there’s a few engineers on here that may put me right but I believe the manhours required to keep a tonka in the air are far greater than a typhoon.

Like all new pieces of kit there are teething problems. I could bore many with all the problems with typhoon but it’s being constantly developed and improving all the time. Like the F35 with its bad press now. Give it 30 years and there will be stories of how great it was by end of life.

Ian Lancs

1,126 posts

165 months

Tuesday 3rd April 2018
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Kccv23highliftcam said:
Of course BAE have continued to pursue Typhoon as single seat, hopefully this will not lead to fratricide or worse.
Didn't seem to be a problem with Harrier or Jaguar.

Don't forget that Eurofighter is a multinational consortium. IIRC BAE actually proposed a Typhoon twin seat a la Tornado, but the rest of the Eurofighter didn't want to go that way as the forecast US F-series aircraft were going single seat.

Tony1963

4,699 posts

161 months

Tuesday 3rd April 2018
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I worked on Tornado from the end of 1982, doing acceptance checks and scheduled maintenance. The aircraft came in for ridicule at every opportunity, and had its share of problems caused by both design and manufacturing.

It took until the first Gulf bunfight for it to truly earn its spurs, but it had been doing well on various excercises before then.

Many people look backwards when that's just the wrong thing to do. Tornado is on its last legs, Typhoon is doing well, F-35..... it'd better do well!

aeropilot

34,297 posts

226 months

Tuesday 3rd April 2018
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Tony1963 said:
Tornado is on its last legs, Typhoon is doing well, F-35..... it'd better do well!
The trouble is, the Typhoon wasn't supposed to be a Tonka replacement, and neither is the F-35 (well, not the one we're buying)........so, the reality is once Tonka retires, we're looking at, surprise, surprise, yet another yawning capability gap.


Tony1963

4,699 posts

161 months

Tuesday 3rd April 2018
quotequote all
aeropilot said:
The trouble is, the Typhoon wasn't supposed to be a Tonka replacement, and neither is the F-35 (well, not the one we're buying)........so, the reality is once Tonka retires, we're looking at, surprise, surprise, yet another yawning capability gap.
But the gaps in capability really don't matter. We never operate on our own now, so others can make up the requirements. There really is no point duplicating capability more often than we need to.

IanH755

1,849 posts

119 months

Tuesday 3rd April 2018
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I enjoyed my time on 617 Sqn and it will be sad to see them leave service but, for a 40 year old airframe, I think it's done amazingly well to stay relevant for so long. However while the phasing out of the Tornado fleet has been known about for quite some time, I'm surprised it's been phased out a year early (was decided to be March '19 a few years ago when I left) and before Typhoon has declared operational capability with Storm Shadow & Brimstone plus a Typhoon version of the RapTOR pod.

Basically everything was aiming for full Typhoon capability around March '19 yet it looks like money has driven a potential 1 year capability gap, with the loss of those items putting a huge dent in our ground attack & reconnaissance capability in our current operational theatres.

Brimstone has proven to be a world class low collateral damage weapon in Afghan, Libya, Syria and Iraq. RapTOR is widely regarded amongst our allies as the best recon pod currently in use and Storm Shadow, varieties of which are also used by other nations, proved it's worth in Libya & Iraq (twice).

However once CENTURION finally bridges the capability gap the Typhoon is going to be a bloody awesome bit of kit!

Edited by IanH755 on Tuesday 3rd April 20:46

ClaphamGT3

11,269 posts

242 months

Tuesday 3rd April 2018
quotequote all
This makes me feel old. A guy who lived in the same village as us in Norfolk as a kid did all the testing of Tornados as they came into service and wrote - or part wrote - whatever the proper name for flight manuals are. He was a fascinating fellow; had been a Vulcan pilot back in the nuclear days and had then converted to Buccaneers. The Tornado was his swan-song.

I was about 10 at the time and used to play with his kids

Trevatanus

11,109 posts

149 months

Tuesday 3rd April 2018
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smile


perdu

4,884 posts

198 months

Tuesday 3rd April 2018
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Oh

frodo_monkey

670 posts

195 months

Wednesday 4th April 2018
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IanH755 said:
I enjoyed my time on 617 Sqn and it will be sad to see them leave service but, for a 40 year old airframe, I think it's done amazingly well to stay relevant for so long. However while the phasing out of the Tornado fleet has been known about for quite some time, I'm surprised it's been phased out a year early (was decided to be March '19 a few years ago when I left) and before Typhoon has declared operational capability with Storm Shadow & Brimstone plus a Typhoon version of the RapTOR pod.

Basically everything was aiming for full Typhoon capability around March '19 yet it looks like money has driven a potential 1 year capability gap, with the loss of those items putting a huge dent in our ground attack & reconnaissance capability in our current operational theatres.

Brimstone has proven to be a world class low collateral damage weapon in Afghan, Libya, Syria and Iraq. RapTOR is widely regarded amongst our allies as the best recon pod currently in use and Storm Shadow, varieties of which are also used by other nations, proved it's worth in Libya & Iraq (twice).

However once CENTURION finally bridges the capability gap the Typhoon is going to be a bloody awesome bit of kit!

Edited by IanH755 on Tuesday 3rd April 20:46
OSD is still March 19 - the rest of your post is bob-on, apart from RapTOR replacement; no contract let for a Typhoon version as far as I know. Albeit I don’t work in Typhoon so there could well be something in the pipeline.

Kccv23highliftcam

1,783 posts

74 months

Wednesday 4th April 2018
quotequote all
Tony1963 said:
I worked on Tornado from the end of 1982, doing acceptance checks and scheduled maintenance. The aircraft came in for ridicule at every opportunity, and had its share of problems caused by both design and manufacturing.

It took until the first Gulf bunfight for it to truly earn its spurs, but it had been doing well on various excercises before then.

Many people look backwards when that's just the wrong thing to do. Tornado is on its last legs, Typhoon is doing well, F-35..... it'd better do well!
"Tornado is on its last legs"

Having spent the last 4 yrs updating and maintaining them at depth, I do not agree.



Kccv23highliftcam

1,783 posts

74 months

Wednesday 4th April 2018
quotequote all
ecsrobin said:
Like the F35 with its bad press now. Give it 30 years and there will be stories of how great it was by end of life.
I hate to break it to you Dude, but like it's 25 years since inception......