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With apologies to Manfred Mann... 2019 is a sad year as the Tornado is being taken out of RAF service, with any luck they will struggle on in Luftwaffe and Aeronautica Militare service for a couple more years but I have decided to spend 2019 building as many Tornado's as I can keep enthusiasm for as a tribute to this marvellous aeroplane. Born out of the 20 years of procurement failures by all nations concerned, TSR.2, Lockheed Scandal etc etc the Italian, German and British governments set about the MRCA project. Unkindly referred to as 'Must Replace Canberra Again' the Multi Role Combat Aircraft was an attempt to build the love child of the F-111 & TSR.2 but made easier by the fact that Technology was catching up with the aspirations of service users and designers. Designed to be short field, line serviceable (note the very clever engine swap hoists), low running costs and high availability the Tornado has been a sight in European skies for 44 years and in front line service (in Cold and Hot wars) for 37 years. Derided at the time as over complex, over budget, obsolete it has matured and proven to be one of the cheapest per-hour aircraft of any equivalent type. The Eurofighter Typhoon was spawned as a direct result of Tornado and the controversy over the F-35 project seems nothing new when you look back. I will miss them. I have no 'road map' for this project other than to work my way through my stash of 10 1/48 Revell Tornado kits, and multiple decals sheets. I will try to build representatives of each nations versions in service, but probably won't duplicate later types as my appetite for a cabinet of grey jets is limited. As Christopher Lee says at the beginning of "To the Devil a Daughter" 'Perhaps you'd better start at the beginning...' So here we go, using the SyHart decal sheet for 44+61, a 2014 Luftwaffe jet masquerading as the prototype to celebrate 40 years of Tornado... Oh! Please feel free to join in, chip in ideas, point out mistakes etc etc.

On this my second set of builds for the GB, I plan to use the Revell 1/144th kit for examples from Luftwaffe, Italian Airforce and RSAF. As the kits are basically the same I intend to include them as a single topic. If the mods would like me to split the builds then please let me know. The Luftwaffe example is an ECR in the 2011 Tiger Scheme and will be made out of the box For the Italian IDS - ECR I am going to use this kit and for the RSAF IDS I am using a GR1 kit. For the Italian and RSAF aircraft I am going to use decals from the excellent MARK1 book

Hi, After finishing the F-51D Mustang around 10 days ago I've had a small break from starting any new models. After pre-spraying both the Lightning F.2a & Spitfire F mk.22 in a thinned mixture of Humbrol 11 I decided to start the Tornado which has been awaiting the build for a while now, I've used the same mixture with varying pressure on the airbrush (borrowed a small compressor), I sprayed all the sprue's. Here's some of the unboxing & photo's once it had been sprayed: Box: Drop tanks Without & With Paint: Sprue A: Sprue B: Sprue C: Decals to be Used: "A" from this set The underside of the fuselage/wings is going to be sprayed Black tomorrow, and hopefully will get the decal's on before assembling it fully. Thanks for looking & comments welcome.

I have attempted and abandoned 2 Italeri Tornado's, I really couldn't be bothered trying to make them fit I would like to use the nice decals for an Italian Air Force (are they an IDS or ECR?) in the grey/green over silver. Therefore I'd like to get one of the rather nice Revell Tornado's but I'm confused as to which of the many boxings to get. I know I don't want the RAF GR.1 (got one of those ) I just want to make sure I get the right bits for an Italian Tornado in the box Any help and advice appreciated greatly Cheers Chris P.s. Its one like this