(Image: Staff Sgt. Perry Aston; Tornado GR4s refuel during Operation Shader)
This stunning photograph, which depicts two Panavia Tornado GR4 strike jets of the Royal Air Force taking on fuel from an Airbus Voyager KC2 tanker, was snapped over Iraq during Operation Shader on March 4, 2015. Operation Shader, which officially began on September 26, 2014, is the code name given to the UK’s ongoing participation in the military intervention against ISIL fundamentalists, also known as Daesh.
In 2014, in a bid to lend support to the fragile Iraqi government, the RAF had begun dropping much needed aid to displaced peoples taking refuge in the Sinjar Mountains of northwestern Iraq. Soon after, UK forces began airlifting vulnerable refugees to safety. By October that year, the RAF had been mandated to conduct reconnaissance missions over Syria and, by December 2015, was engaged in full-scale airstrikes against ISIL extremists in the embattled country.
As of this month, British jets are understood to have conducted more than 640 separate airstrikes over the course of 2,200 combat missions. More than 1,200 ISIL fighters have been killed with no civilian casualties. The UK fast jet contingent is comprised of Tornado GR4 and Eurofighter Typhoon.
Despite the Tornado’s ageing airframe, which has been adapted greatly since its Cold War inception, the robust aircraft remains at the cutting-edge of its capabilities and is still considered one of the most capable all-weather strike jets in the world. The Typhoon will one ultimately take over the Tornado’s role, along with the F-35, but the Eurofighter is not yet cleared to carry all the air-to-ground weapons available to Tornado GR4 crews.
To date, Urban Ghosts has covered the Tornado in some detail, in particular the type’s steady wind-down and the disposal of early GR1 airframes. But as the above photograph demonstrates, the aircraft will remain at the forefront of the NATO inventory until its final out-of-service date arrives in three years time.
Of the jets pictured, the serial number of the Voyager KC2 is ZZ334. The Tornados are harder to identify, though the port jet appears to be ZA449 (tail code 020).
Related – Tornado ZA367 Undergoes Repairs at RAF Gibraltar in 2012
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