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Aviation History
1997
1997 - 3386.PDF
DEFENCE Tornado forecast The Royal Air Force's Panavia Tornado GR4 will form the core of its conventional strike capability until around 2020 DOUGLAS BARRIE/LONDON THE PANAVIA TORNADO GR4's progress from paper project to production has been far from smooth, the develop ment path being littered with delays, the danger of cancellation and a critical National Audit Office report. The Royal Air Force finally received the first two of a total of 142 GR4s at the end of October, with deliveries due to be completed during 2002. The aircraft's planned initial service date is September 1998, with the first aircraft being delivered to RAF Bruggen, in Germany. The Tornado mid- life update (MLU), Staff Requirement (Air) 417, had its genesis in the mid-1980s and was created because the Tornado GRl's survivability in penetrating heavily defended Warsaw Pact airspace at low level needed to be improved. The Tornado's primary task was in the tactical nuclear-strike role, to deliver the WEI77 free-fall bomb against pre-assigned Warsaw Pact targets. The RAF, in the nature of upgrade projects, started by looking at what was possible, includ ing the insertion of an airframe fuselage plug to provide extra fuel capacity, before narrowing its wish list down to the probable, and dien finally to what is now referred to as MLU 88. The service had planned to order 26 new- build GR4s, as well as converting the bulk of its Tornado fleet, as its batch eight procurement, but this was cancelled in 1990. PENETRATION CAPABILITY The driver behind the MLU 88 upgrade was to provide a fully automated, covert, low-level- penetration capability. In addition to an improved avionics architec ture, new displays and sensors were included - including a forward-looking infra-red (FLIR), new armament and control, and terrain-refer ence navigation (TRN) systems and covert radio altimeter. The additions of the FLIR and TRN were intended to allow the Tornado to be flown at low level without the necessity of using any active emitters - primarily the terrain-fol lowing radar (TFR). The FLIR is limited, however, in having a forward field of view only, so it was supplement ed with night-vision goggles (NVGs) and a compatible cockpit. Subsequent events and ensuing budgetary constraints then conspired against the MLU 88 programme, however, after die components of the update had been chosen. The underlying rationale for the MLU 88 was built on the premise that die RAF's primary mission would be to fight a war in the Central European dieatre against Warsaw Pact forces. In addition, die 1990-1 Gulf War provided the service with a taste of the kind of future air oper ations with which it was likely to be tasked. In the Gulf War, the RAF used the Tornado GR1 in a variety of roles, including offensive counter-air, air-interdiction, suppression of enemy air defence, and tactical reconnaissance. After initially deploying the aircraft at low level, the service switched to a medium-level cam paign, revealing what air force sources describe as "a number of sub-optimal areas". The GRl's sensors, for instance, were optimised for low- 38 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 10 - 16 December 1997
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