Part of a post I just made on the Libya NFZ thread:
At 7nm per minute:
Sigonella - Tripoli 280nm = 40 mins
Luqa - Tripoli 195nm = 27 mins
Sigonella or Luqa - Benghazi 330nm = 47 mins
Souda Bay - Benghazi 280nm = 40 mins
Given that Tornado used to take part in Op TELIC from Qatar, over 1 hour's flying time from Basra, you can see that land basing is perfectly feasible in this case. Operating in concert with Nimrod R1, it brings a decent SEAD capability to the table, as well as the overwatch and low-collateral precision attack currently being practised on Op HERRICK.
Sorry, carrier fans - this conflict in no way proves that we need a carrier-borne attack capability. Especially when it was based on a short-ranged aircraft with no SEAD capability and no long-range weapons for IADS rollback.
Air defence is a different argument and being carrier-based would allow quicker regen times and a decent QRA location. But, as stated
many times above, an AIM-9L- (or even ASRAAM-) equipped GR9 would not constitute a decent air defence capability when compared to any radar-equipped aircraft. Move along.