(Image: Nick Collins; Tornado ZD749, with its patchwork paint job, passes through the Mach Loop)
As more and more airframes are withdrawn from service and cannibalised for spare parts to keep the remaining fleet in the air, it isn’t unusual to see Panavia Tornado GR4 strike jets blasting through Britain’s upland valleys sporting a variety of paint jobs. Most can be seen in the updated light sea grey, while a handful still wear the darker scheme of previous years. A few have fancy commemorative tails – often those that aren’t long for this world.
Confusingly, some dark sea grey Tornados have been fitted with light coloured radomes, while a handful of aircraft in the more modern scheme nevertheless sport earlier black noses. At a time when surviving Tornados are essentially pooled and squadron codes are starting to disappear, the varying liveries at least add interest – and none moreso than those of the hodgepodges, like ZD749.
(Image: Paul Harvey; the aircraft still sports an older-style RAF fin flash)
Type “Tornado ZD749” into Google Images or Flickr, and you’ll find what is arguably one of the messiest GR4s in the fleet. And unlike many smarter ones that have gone before it, ZD749 is understood to still be very much active.
The Marham-based jet, tail code 097, was reportedly last noted with No. 31 Squadron on August, 19 this year, using the callsign Voodoo 2. Unlike many in the ageing fleet, Tornado ZD749 has not yet maxed out its flying hours or fatigue life, at which point the airframe would be handed over to the mercy of the RTP team at RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire.
(Image: Nick Collins)
But as these photographs reveal, ZD749’s patchwork paint scheme echoes the donor aircraft from which its received its fair share of panels – cannibalised Tornados which have likely been ‘reduced to produce’ – stripped for parts and scrapped.
As of this year, the aircraft also retained the wider red and blue fin flash of earlier schemes, rather than the more discrete, updated version now seen on most Tornados and the UK’s other fast combat jet, the Eurofighter Typhoon.
(Image: Paul Harvey; sporting a mixture of light and dark sea grey panels from various Tornado GR4s)
So if you’re visiting the Mach Loop and one of the most untidy-looking Tornados you’ve ever seen screams through with its wings raked back, there’s a good chance it’s ZD749/097.
The Batch 4, Block 8 jet was the 384th Panavia Tornado built when it rolled off the production line in 1984. In all, an impressive 992 units were constructed, including 218 F3 Advanced Defence Variants (ADV). The aircraft was jointly developed by the UK, Italy and Germany in the 1970s, and the strike version remains in service with those nations, as well as Saudi Arabia, today, pending its replacement by the much-anticipated F-35 Lightning II.
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