Manching, August 1974

On 14 August 1974 a stubby grey jet with swing wings lifted off from Manching in Bavaria. At the controls of prototype P.01 was Paul Millett, a British test pilot flying a jet built by British, German and Italian engineers from a German airfield. Barely thirty years after the three countries had been at war, they had designed a front-line combat aircraft together. It would become the Tornado, and the company built to deliver it, Panavia, is still in business more than half a century later.

Six nations, then three

It began as a much bigger club. In 1968 West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Canada launched a Multi Role Aircraft study, and Britain joined that year. Belgium and Canada dropped out; Fokker signed the letter of intent on 17 July 1968 and then withdrew, and the Netherlands left in 1970. On 26 March 1969 the survivors founded Panavia Aircraft GmbH: the British Aircraft Corporation and Messerschmitt-Bölkow with 42.5% each, Fiat with 15%. Its first chairman was BAC’s Allen Greenwood.

One aeroplane, three countries

The workshare followed the shareholding. Britain built the front fuselage and tail, West Germany the centre fuselage, Italy the wings. Engines came from another three-nation company, Turbo-Union, in which Rolls-Royce and MTU held 40% each and Fiat 20%; the RB199 gave the Tornado thrust reversers, rare on a fighter. The wings swept from 25 to 67 degrees. On the customer side, a NATO agency managed the programme, and from 1981 to 1999 crews from all three air forces trained side by side at the Tri-National Tornado Training Establishment at RAF Cottesmore.

IDS, ADV, ECR

Panavia built 990 Tornados between 1979 and 1998. The bulk, 745, were IDS interdictor-strikers for low-level attack. The long-nosed Air Defence Variant was a British requirement, first flown on 27 October 1979 by David Eagles; 194 were built, and Saudi Arabia bought 24 under the Al Yamamah deal alongside 96 IDS. Italy leased 24 RAF F3s from 1995 to 2004. Germany and Italy took 51 ECR aircraft for electronic combat and reconnaissance. Saudi Arabia received the last batch in 1998.

Into battle

The Tornado’s first war was the hardest. In 1991 the RAF sent its GR1s low over Iraqi airfields and lost six aircraft; Italy lost one of eight deployed and Saudi Arabia one IDS. In 1999, over Kosovo, German Tornados flew Germany’s first offensive air missions since the Second World War. In 2011 RAF Tornados flew the longest-range bombing mission since the Falklands to strike Libya. The RAF’s last operational sorties, over Iraq and Syria, came on 31 January 2019, and the type retired on 1 April 2019, the RAF’s 101st birthday.

Keeping the Tornado flying

Panavia today is a sustainment house in Hallbergmoos near Munich, owned by Airbus Defence and Space and BAE Systems with 42.5% each and Leonardo with 15%. Its Panavia Sustainment Programme exists to keep spares and engineering flowing to every Tornado customer until the last out-of-service date. Germany plans to retire its Tornados by 2030, handing their missions to the Eurofighter and the F-35A; Italy is also moving to the F-35, while Saudi Arabia still flies the type.

Fabrieken

• Panavia headquarters · Hallbergmoos, Upper Bavaria — Programme management and sustainment
• Tri-National Tornado Training Establishment · RAF Cottesmore, Rutland — Joint crew training, 1981–1999

Mensen

• Allen Greenwood · first chairman — From the British Aircraft Corporation, Weybridge
• Paul Millett · test pilot — Flew the first Tornado, 14 August 1974
• David Eagles · test pilot — Flew the first Tornado ADV, 27 October 1979

Records en primeurs

• Germany’s first offensive air missions since the Second World War, Kosovo 1999 (p3)
• Longest-range RAF bombing mission since the Falklands, Libya 2011 (p3)