Kagero Publishing Panavia Tornado In Combat 9788366673175

[Mike]

Panavia Tornado In Combat

(9788366673175)

Kagero Publishing via Casemate UK

 

 

In the 60s, European nations were separately researching a new generation of Fighter Bomber, to replace the ageing fleets of Canberras and V-Bombers in British service, and Starfighters in some of the European countries.  Several single-nation projects were discarded along the way, and as their needs converged (at times an uneasy cooperation), the concept of a multi-national project took shape, eventually settling on the name Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA) to be managed by a new company, Panavia.  As is usual with these projects, there were some comings and goings of participants, with the final partners being the UK, Germany and Italy, in a 42.5/42.5/15% split respectively.  Britain built the nose, cockpit and forward fuselage, plus the tail and aft fuselage, while the Germans made the central fuselage section and the Italians were responsible for the variable-geometry “swing-wings”.  Compromises always have their downsides, and although the Tornado was a powerful, fast aircraft and a capable bomb-truck, it wasn’t as manoeuvrable as some, even in the “fighter” variant that Britain knew as the F.2 or F.3, which has a longer nose and fuselage inserts that give it a slightly different, more slender look.

 

It first flew in 1973 from a German airfield with a British pilot, and carried on extensive testing with a large number of prototypes and pre-series aircraft taking part to allegedly speed up the process.  In RAF service it was too new to take part in the Falkland conflict, leaving the creaky Vulcans to their last and most impressive missions at maximum range.  They served valiantly with their respective operators through the various Middle Eastern conflicts, as well as in the Balkans, during the policing actions there.  The Tornado’s service with the RAF ended after 40 years in 2019, to be replaced by the Eurofighter Typhoon, which is also replacing some of the Tornados still in service with other nations.

 

 

 

This new book from Kagero Publishing is the fifth in their In-Combat series, this one from authors Salvador Mafé Huertas and Riccardo Niccoli.  The book is soft bound with a card cover, and runs to 68 pages in a portrait-oriented form.  The book initially concentrates on the research of the requirements for the type through the early stages in a discussion of the development that led to the Tornado, which is incidentally the same spelling for all nations.  The systems incorporated into the three sub-types are also detailed, as are the uses of the aircraft in service with the several nations that have used it, without playing favourites to one or the other.

 

 

 

 

The various chapters are laid out as follows:

 

• Introduction
• The Tornado IDS
  • The Airframe
  • The Powerplant
  • The Avionics
  • The Radars
  • The Navigation System
  • Weapons Delivery
  • Self-Defence Systems
  • Armament
• Tornado at War
  • Middle East
  • The Balkans
  • Afghanistan
  • Libya
  • Operations against the Islamic State
  • RAF Jets Strike Chemical Weapons Facility in Syria
  • The End of the Tonka
• Tornado SEAD & ECR
  • The Tornado ECR
  • Luftwaffe Tornados Return from Counter IS Mission

 

Given the scope of the book, it is a fairly detailed overview of the development of the aircraft, with copious colour photos of a good size with drawings, several pages of profiles, plans and cross-sectional drawings.  In the latter half of the book, there are a lot of photos of the type in action, mostly at the beginning and end of missions as you’d expect, or on the ground in between times. 

 

 

 

 

As a bonus, you will find a glossy A4 print of the cover artwork in landscape, focusing extremely closely on the Tornado in the foreground, although it does cut out a little of the explosion in the background, which is a shame from my personal aesthetic point of view.

 

 

Conclusion

If you’re interested in the Tornado, Tonka of Fin, this is an excellent book to broaden your knowledge, and prime you for a potential deep-dive later into weightier tomes.  Some great pictures and really nice profiles, although at times the text can be a little disjointed due to its (I suspect) translation into English from another language.  Some spelling mistakes and incorrect choices of words have also crept in too, sadly.  Don’t let that put you off though, as it’s still very much worth a read and a look.

 

Highly recommended.

 

At time of writing, this book is currently on discount with Casemate UK

 

Review sample courtesy of

[MT1]

Sorry Mike, but i'm going to disagree. I was disappointed with this product, for the cover price there are better Tornado books and magazines out there. To me it seemed as if Kagero put in some effort to cover the development of the aircraft and then ran out of space as everything past the early years seemed to be quite brief. Indeed there was next to nothing about Tornado operations during the Cold War and hardly a mention of the Saudi's what so ever. Even the single picture of a RSAF jet is in fact a crashed RAF Tornado from Desert Shield. The GR4 plate on the rear cover also is from Op Telic 2003 and not Unified Protector 2011 as stated and the center spread picture is of an early 80's 27 Sqn machine not a GR4 from 'Allied Force' in 1999 (In fact i think the RAF only used GR1's during that conflict) There are some nice photographs and the A4 size poster (Landscape of the cover picture ) is something different. The author also sheds a little more light on Italian operations with hours/sorties flown data for a number of conflicts.