(Image: Martyn Wraight; Panavia Tornado ZA365 blasts off from Lossiemouth for the last time)
Tornado ZA365 isn’t a recent RTP, but we wanted to showcase these superb photographs by Martyn Wraight, capturing perfectly the swirling wingtip vortices caused by the venerable jet as she takes to the air for the last time. The Tornado GR4(T) – a twin-stick training version of Panavia’s combat-proven strike jet – is seen here on takeoff roll at RAF Lossiemouth, Scotland, in September 2013.
The lack of drop tanks and other external stores indicate this Tornado’s imminent fate, bound for RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire to be reduced to produce – a process whereby all servicable parts are removed for reuse on still-active machines before the empty hulk is dumped for scrap.
ZA365’s tail code – 001 – reflects her status as the first RAF Tornado to go through the mid-life upgrade conversion to GR4 standard in the late 1990s. Until being RTP’d, she was also one of the oldest Tornado GR4s in the fleet.
(Image: Martyn Wraight; Tornado ZA365 begins final takeoff roll)
The dual-control jet first flew as a Tornado GR1(T) in July 1982 and entered RAF service on September 20, two months after her maiden flight. She was one of around 50 Tornado GR1s deployed to the Middle East during Operation Desert Storm, where she received a new desert camoflage paint scheme and wore the tail code GZ.
For eight months during 1999 and 2000 ZA365 was upgraded to GR4 standard at BAE Systems’ facility at Warton, Lancashire, and continued in that role for more than a decade. Last operated by No. 15 (Reserve) Squadron, the Tornado Operational Conversion Unit, the high-hours airframe was finally withdrawn from service in 2013.
She made her final sortie to RAF Leeming on September 20th – 31 years to the day after her delivery to the Royal Air Force as the UK’s most potent and modern strike platform.
Related – ‘Tarnish 21’:Tornado GR4A ZA373 Makes Final Flight Through the Mach Loop
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