Of note is that none of the Tornadoes hit Tornadoes from other formations. When considering a Tornado-only problem, the first question in response must therefore be - Why did the other aircraft run into the Tornadoes?
http://www.ukserials.com/pdflosses/m...0113_zd891.pdf
http://www.ukserials.com/pdflosses/m...z393_za408.pdf
http://www.ukserials.com/pdflosses/m...z116_za493.pdf
Just pulling off a few of the accident reports; with the Tornado-Alphajet collision, none of the 5 aircraft saw the collision aircraft approaching each other. With the Tornado/Jag off Cromer, none of the aircrew were looking in the right direction at the critical time, and the jag pilot's vision would have been obscured by cockpit ironmongery as well. In the Lake District mid-air, both aircraft were invisible to each other due to terrain. The low level routing system was changed after this.
So, I don't think it was a particular Tornado problem, it was just an inherent risk of intense low level flying. My personal guess is that, with the common use of HUDs/radalts, everybody's '250 feet' was now the
same '250 feet'. There were probably quite a few close ones before that were avoided (and not even noticed) because of this.
I had an ex-Bucc QFI on Basic, who taught me to move my neck and shoulders as well as my head - I believe the Bucc had the worst ironmongery problem. From the time I spent flying F3s on low level sweep/escort, I don't recall the canopy arch being too bad. It was a bit bigger than the Hawk's, but with the roomy cockpit it was easy to move one's body to allow the head to look around it.
If anything, the 2 crew in the Tornado had a much better chance of having at least one set of eyes on lookout than a single-seat mud-mover.