View Full Version : Tornado F3 wings
Shaft109
4th Nov 2008, 22:10
Just seen the pics posted about the practise role demo at Waddington and noticed the F3 was fitted with outer pylons. Back in 95 I did my work experience on these and remember them being blanked off. Was it just the lower parts removed or were the internal hinges still there?
Just a curiosity.
p.s. Was it something to do with affecting fatigue life that they were removed, but actually speed up the rate at which the wing FI was used up? (no mass damping?
Shaft
Safeware
4th Nov 2008, 22:17
The internal workings were left there. First used for TRD and ECM on Op Deny Flight.
sw
BluntM8
5th Nov 2008, 06:06
Yes, having light wings does adversely affect wing damping and fatigue life. That's why the fuel in the wings is used late in the fuel sequence, and the GR is not normally flown with the outboards empty - it helps to eek out the remaining fatigue life.
blunty
Lima Juliet
6th Nov 2008, 06:09
The internal workings were left there. First used for TRD and ECM on Op Deny Flight.
And Iraq NFZ and TELIC...
Flatright
6th Nov 2008, 10:32
The F3s were originally built without the internal linkages to the outer pylon hard points. The introduction of TRD to some of the F3 fleet led to the linkages being robbed from GR1 ac that didn't carry outborad pylons ie the early TTTE ac.
Bruiser Loose
6th Nov 2008, 11:23
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
1994-96 I was on a team a CBY installing the F3 TRD (& HOTAS & NVG) it was really nice seeing F3s in bits and being rebuilt. All Torpedo wings were built in Italy (ptoo!)
Yes, we did install all the internal hardware to the wings - and we even rigged the Pylons to point to the front most of the time.
Ahhh, The mamories of coningsby!