Panavia Tornado

Tornado ADV

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The Panavia Tornado Air Defence Variant (ADV) is a long-range, twin-engine [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] version of the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

The aircraft's first flight was on 27 October 1979, and it entered service in 1986.

It was retired on 22 March 2011 by the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], currently it is only in service with the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

It was also previously operated by the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

The aircraft was originally designed to intercept [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] as they came in from the East to strike the United Kingdom.

The Tornado ADV for the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] were produced to F3 standard. Both the RAF and RSAF have or are replacing the Tornado ADV with the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].


Design and development


Requirements

The Tornado ADV had its origins in an RAF requirement (Air Staff Requirement 395 or ASR.395), which called for a long-range interceptor to replace the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

The requirement for a modern interceptor was driven by the threat posed by the large Soviet long-range bomber fleet, in particular the supersonic [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

From the beginning of the Tornado IDS's development in 1968, the possibility of a variant dedicated to air defense had been quietly considered; several American aircraft had been evaluated but found to be unsuitable.

The concept was not attractive to other European partners, thus UK proceeded alone; development of the Tornado ADV was approved on 4 March 1976, with [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] (BAe, now [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]) to provide 3 prototypes.

The first prototype was rolled out at [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] on 9 August 1979, before making its [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] on 27 October 1979.

The second and third development aircraft made their first flights on 18 July and 18 November 1980, respectively.

During the flight testing, the ADV demonstrated noticeably superior supersonic acceleration to the IDS, even while carrying a full weapons loadout.

The testing of the prototypes was greatly aided by the use of [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] being broadcast back to ground technicians from aircraft in flight.

The third prototype was primarily used in the testing of the new [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] airborne interception radar.

The Tornado ADV's differences compared to the IDS include a greater sweep angle on the inboard fixed wing sections, deletion of the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] cannon, a longer radome for the Foxhunter radar, and a fuselage stretch of 1.36 m to allow the carriage of four [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] semi-active radar homing missiles.

The stretch was applied to the Tornado front fuselage being built by the UK, with a plug being added immediately behind the cockpit, which had the incidental benefit of reducing drag and making space for an additional fuel tank (Tank '0') carrying 200 imperial gallons (909 L; 240 U.S. gal) of fuel.

The [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] of the flight controls was lighter on the ADV than on the IDS.

Various internal avionics, pilot displays, guidance systems and software also differed; including an automatic wing sweep selector not fitted to the strike aircraft.