1:48 Tornado F2A TIARA Revell Kitbash

[Scoobydoof]

Maybe it's the extended time I've had off, maybe I'm just going mad but I've had an idea...

 

If I combine Revells Tornado F3 with their GR4 along with some scratch building in the cockpit and between the nose and the windscreen, I reckon I can backdate an F3 into the sole F2A, other wise known as the Tornado Integrated Avionics Research Aircraft (TIARA for short).

 

Due to the parts break down of the Revell kit it's pretty simple. The main changes are swapping the vertical tail from the GR4 onto the F3 including the lower fillet, along with the shorter engines and the rear fuselage plug between the tail lugs and the thrust reverse buckets. There aren't much in the way of markings to worry about so that just leaves the cockpit modifications and the nose. The area just aft of the hinge line for the radar was modified to test an IRST, which I believe influenced the decision for one to be included on the Typhoon. 

 

There may be a few changes to aerials due to the systems added over the aircrafts life but nothing to hard to fix.

 

It does of course leave me with a what if Tornado GR5 which will be a GR4 with the longer engines following the retirement of the F3 fleet.

 

The other alternative was to do the F3 in it's final flight configuration, with a single Meteor Test Missile under the rear port missile station (ok, so not the final final flight) but that would need markings sourced and I don't have access to the drawings for the added calibration markings, extra Skyshadow Pods to convert to camera pods, etc. The GR4 would become a GR1 ZA326.

 

As far as I know the F2 had the extra Fuel Tank behind the cockpit the same as the F3. Are there any other external changes between the F3 and F2A that I've forgotten about?

 

TIA

Chris

(an obviously fevered mind, or just far too much time on my hands)

 

PS. I worked on TIARA, the Meteor Trails Tornado and ZA326 years ago so I'd be happy either way. I might do the GR5 as 326 just to mess with some heads

[BLACK_MAMBA]

This will be an exciting one! You seem to have all the basics covered... The only real big external difference between the F2 and F3 was the short GR engines you already covered. The rest should all be the same.

 

Popcorn ready.🍿 

[exdraken]

interesting project,. I did not know of the existence of such a hybrid!

more here, incl pics:

https://www.jetartaviation.co.uk/tornado-zd902

 

interestingly the other F2 were not upgraded but rather reduced to spares.. is this a typical military approach to first want to have something urgently that you later can't afford to upgrade to a suitable standard....  Typhoon TwinSticks and Tranche 1 in general comes to my mind as well .... can't be that cost effective, no?

 

by the way a rather interesting use for the aircraft:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/eqm0pk/concorde_at_mach_2_the_only_picture_ever_taken_of/

[Scoobydoof]

1 hour ago, exdraken said:

interestingly the other F2 were not upgraded but rather reduced to spares..

In this case it was only due to the manufacturer drilling some holes incorrectly in 16 of the new F3 Fuselages so the relevant frames from the F2s were sacrificed rather than delay the build of the new aircraft.

[Riksbar]

 

4 hours ago, Scoobydoof said:

In this case it was only due to the manufacturer drilling some holes incorrectly in 16 of the new F3 Fuselages so the relevant frames from the F2s were sacrificed rather than delay the build of the new aircraft.

I thought this was a company other than the original manufacturer drilling the wrong holes after it was decided that the original manufacturer’s bid for the work was too high.  Said original manufacturer received a much bigger contract to rectify the aircraft using the aforementioned F.2 frames.

[Jabba]

29 minutes ago, Riksbar said:

 

I thought this was a company other than the original manufacturer drilling the wrong holes after it was decided that the original manufacturer’s bid for the work was too high.  Said original manufacturer received a much bigger contract to rectify the aircraft using the aforementioned F.2 frames.

The drilling of these incorrect holes was done by Airworks at RAF St Athan who won the contract to carry out the work rather than the slightly more expensive BAe. However the engineers that Airworks brought in were not always Aircraft Engineers with a few being refrigeration engineers and some others like that. 

[Riksbar]

3 hours ago, Jabba said:

The drilling of these incorrect holes was done by Airworks at RAF St Athan who won the contract to carry out the work rather than the slightly more expensive BAe. However the engineers that Airworks brought in were not always Aircraft Engineers with a few being refrigeration engineers and some others like that. 

I want going to say but…
 

They made a hell of a mess of the pivot mounts as well, and tried to get some local plating company to re-plate them.🙄

[tarlucan]

All fairly appropriate since British Aggregates has more input to the radar than British Aerospace did!

[B_Bogus]

5 minutes ago, tarlucan said:

All fairly appropriate since British Aggregates has more input to the radar than British Aerospace did!

The famous 'Blue Circle' Radar!

[Scoobydoof]

Good old Blue Circle Radar! although this one had the Sea Harrier Radar fitted for at least a time