(Image: Shaun Connor; hulk of Tornado F2 ZD899)
Last year Jet Art Aviation announced that it had secured ZD902, a unique, heavily modified Panavia Tornado F2A known as TIARA (Tornado Integrate Avionics Research Aircraft) that had been used in trials work by BAE Systems. Another rare F2 version of the Tornado ADV (serial number ZD899), however, has since appeared at the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service Training Centre in Bury.
Photos of the forlorn hulk of Tornado ZD899 began appearing on the web last month, sparking calls across the Fighter Control community to save the aircraft. But the thread suggests that enquiries hit a dead end, and that the aircraft will be used as a crash rescue training aid. Demobbed lists the airframe (which has been stripped for parts but appears undamaged) as “instructional, fire training”.
Tower FM said in February that the aircraft would now serve in the import role of saving lives According to the site: “Reaching supersonic mach 2 speeds of up to 1,300 miles per hour, this masterpiece of aviation will sit in a carefully fabricated plane crash scenario, involving a partially demolished house.”
Built in 1984, ZD899 was the first production Tornado ADV (Air Defence Variant). The aircraft was retained by BAE for trials work and never entered RAF service. According to “jetnoise”, writing on the Fighter Control forum, the aircraft served as a radar and weapons system testbed, carrying out paired trials with ZE155, a later F3 airframe.
Fitted with a twin inertial navigation system and superior avionics, ZD899 was a heavily upgraded version of the far more basic F2, a short-lived interim version of the ADV interceptor. The aircraft was based at BAE’s Warton facility in Lancashire.
(Image: Grumman G1159; the “Bury Tornado”)
Tornado F2s entered service around the mid-1980s and were used by the RAF for training pending the arrival of the superior F3. Eighteen F2s were built, sporting the longer radome (housing a larger air defence radar) seen on the F3 variant. But the interrim type retained the shorter Tornado GR1 rear fuselage, powered by the same two Turbo-Union RB.199-34R Mk 103 turbofan engines as the strike version.
After just a few short years, the much-maligned F2, which was dogged by radar problems, was withdrawn from service. For years the ex-RAF airframes were stored at Shawbury, several donating their centre-fuselage sections to repair damaged F3s before being sold for scrap. ZD899, however, enjoyed a far more eventful career. The jet remained active until 2004 when she was finally grounded and placed in storage at Boscombe Down in Wiltshire.
Unlike most of her fellow F2s, ZD899 avoided scrapping. But today, the Tornado F3 is a rare breed, and the F2 is even rarer. Other than TIARA and an F2 prototype (ZA267) understood to remain at RAF Marham as a ground trainer, ZD899 is the last complete Tornado F2 airframe in existence.
The post Hulk of Tornado F2 ZD899 at Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service Training Centre appeared first on Urban Ghosts Media.