ZA399, Panavia Tornado GR.1

ChrisHall

Gulf War Veteran and ex 617 "Dambuster" Squadron Tornado finds a new home

When rolled off the line at Warton in 1982 she was the 66th Tornado GR.1 out of 228 RAF GR.1s built. In service she spent several years with the RAF over in Germany before the hitting the bigtime and being sent over to Bahrain for Desert Storm in 1991. Like the other UK GR1s she wore a fetching desert pink scheme and picked up some garish “Hello Kuwait Goodbye Iraq” and nose art along with the nickname name ”Zimmer Woman” and tail letter G for “Granny”.

She carried out 15 strike missions but exactly what they were is unknown, that information is not available . As an overview though, RAF Tornados were very much at the pointy end of things and generally carried out low level work at the start of the campaign using both 1000lb unguided bombs and the infamous JP233 runway denial weapon. You must remember the JP233, it’s the one you gawped at in pictures of the Tonka in your Take Off magazine as a kid, pinging out loads of little bomblets at ultra low-level. Anyway, later on in the war the Tornados operated higher and smarter using guided munitions which helped lift them out of some of the threat zone although RAF Buccaneers still had to designate the target for them with their laser equipment.

After the war, ZA399 came home via Germany and eventually ended up with the legendary 617 Squadron at Marham in 1992, having reverted back to her normal grey/green camo for operations in Europe. 1994 saw the airframe converted to GR1B standard which brought with it the capability to launch Sea Eagle anti-shipping missiles and then in 1995 she went out to Turkey to take part in policing the Northern No-Fly Zones over Iraq. Again, details on specific missions are not avaiable, but obviously entailed keeping Iraqi air power firmly on the ground where the UN said it belonged.

After this second ‘combat tour’ the aircraft was back with 617 Squadron and was given tailcode AJ-C in tribute to Avro Lancaster ED910 and her crew which was lost on the Dambusters raid. Only one crew member survived, Sgt Tees the rear gunner. The pilot’s name (Pilot Officer Warner Ottley DFC) is painted under the port side of the canopy and has been retained during the restoration along with the AJ-C tail code as a memorial and mark of respect. Lancaster AJ-C was hit by heavy anti aircraft fire on 17th May 1943 on route to attack the Lister dam. Warner Ottley’s final words over the intercom were ”I’m sorry, boys, they got us”

ZA399′s flying days came to an end in 2001 and she spent a few years in storage at St Athan in Glamorgan before being taken by road to 1 SoTT at RAF Cosford in 2006. After a number of years in use as a training aid, the aircraft was disposed of to Jet Art Aviation and restored, before being sold and placed on display by Oliver Valves Ltd, Knutsford in 2013.

DougRobertson

Chris,

Thanks for the good history of a Panavia Tornado MRCA, or consortium-built Multi-Role Combat Aircraft. The concept was nap of the earth strike aircraft fllight to avoid enemy radar detection. All European and beyond structures over a certain above ground height were programmed into the flight sortie for avoidance automatically with the crew along for the ride, so to speak; oh, they did have tasks-my understatement.

Because of the nap of the earth low-level flying, it was judged too risky to have a sequenced canopy, then crew seat Ejection Profile because of the slight time delay inherent in these events. Thus, miniature detonating cord (MDC) was placed inside the canopy surface in a zig-zag overhead pattern. Upon ejection, the canopy would be fractured by the MDC simultaneous with the crew ejection who would pass through where the canopy had been above them. The explosive noise of the canopy fracturing from the MDC was actually measured and recorded inside the Tornado with an instrumented sound level meter at 162 dB sound pressure level re 0.0002 dynes/square centimeter, or 0.0002 microbar, if you prefer that reference.

The loudest possible noise in nature is 170 dB, after that the rarefactions of any sound wave would have to pull an absolute vacuum and beyond, not possible in nature. So, some aircrew hearing impairment was judged acceptable from the MDC noise level over possible loss of aircrew in an ejection that did not save the crew's lives. The aircrew flight helmet simply would not attenuate the MDC noise sufficiently to prevent some loss of hearing through acoustic trauma.

Now, we have altitude-seeking ejection seats available despite whatever flight attitude the aircraft is in at time of ejection by the aircrew; to prevent loss of life the parachute deployment is delayed until such altitude above ground or water would allow a full chute for safer ejections.