Tornado F2 acquisition
 

Rereading F K Mason's magisterial "The British Fighter since 1912" I came across the following regarding the (Panavia) Tornado F2:-

"Several other American fighters were evaluated... including the F-14, F-15 and F-16 but none proved to meet the RAF's fighter requirement in the context of NATO Strategy & tactics......"

I can see that the F-16 was too short-legged to intercept the TU-22M way out of Shetland but the F-14 & F-15 must have filled the requirement.

Anyone any memories as to what was so special about the RAF requirement??

Other than Not Invented Here??

Described to me once by an involved VSO:

"Req was for a system that could hold CAP for Xhours at over XXXHundred miles out over the North Sea in a snow storm at night and engage at beyond visual range multiple Regimental sized Backfire raids coming in at varied height in heavy ECM jamming "

Not much could do that. F-14 and MRCA ADV was it. F-14 massively expensive and not that much better than home grown option.

Plus if you subtract 165 aircraft from the MRCA programme that could have persuaded the Germans to walk and you then lose the entire MRCA programme.

Lacking the home grown ability to produce such systems and relying on sourcing from abroad means that you then have to rely on the good will of overseas Governments and as such severely compromise your Foreign Policy.

I suspect it came down to £££ and, not built in UK.

OAP

The fact that the UK didn't have to stock up with a shedload of Dollar bills in the piggy bank first to pay for the thing may also have something to do with it, much like a lot of other buy British first selections in the 1950-70 (Mason and his ilk never look at the real reasons projects get selected or canned, like a planned piece of technology is found not to be possible within the time / cost schedules or there is a massive change of policy due to improved technology / Change of threat / Economic meltdown killing the rate of the pound v the Dollar (1956/67/73) / Etc). There is also the fact that the British requirements actually took the requirements of confronting an enemy using heavy ECM more seriously than the US did back then. As PrOOne states, only really the MRCA ADV (as it was then) and F-14 could meet the requirement and the F-14 wasn't value for money as regards performance v price tag.

It was a dog's dinner from the start.

Twin pit 15 would have been best I think with the conformal tanks.

Could have built them under licence at St Annes.

Perhaps could have spend a bit to detune them with Speys and concrete in nose .

Here is the story from the time:

https://www.flightglobal.com/FlightP...=1&view=FitH,0

https://www.flightglobal.com/FlightP...=1&view=FitH,0

https://www.flightglobal.com/FlightP...=1&view=FitH,0

Basically we need to remember that back in the mid 70s the F-15A was a great little rocket ship with poor avionics before the US spent a mint on it to give them the fantastic F-15C. Further the F-14A at that time had a 'blue water' radar that could see very little overland and the smaller engines that gave it little performance edge over the planned Tornado ADV; it was only the F-14B and the F-14D that had the better engines that came later. Also, the AI24 FOXHUNTER in the Tornado was designed for the ECM war expected in Europe and matched to the Skyflash with improved ECCM over the Sparrow that it was based upon.

So when the decision on Air Staff Target 395 was made for a long range bomber interceptor then the Tornado ADV was the right choice. When the Berlin Wall came down and the F14, F15 and F16 had their mid-life uogrades coming on line the poor old ADV (now the Tornado F3) was just coming into service in pretty much its envisaged capability. Unfortunately, by then, the tactics and requirements had moved along. That said, the introduction of later stages of radar, JTIDS, towed radar decoy, ASRAAM and AMRAAM made the F3 as good as the rest in a shooting war by 2003/4 - but by then we were dabbling in a different kind of campaign again in the sandpits.

LJ

PS. I still think a RAF Tomcat would have been cooler though!
http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/...l/IMG_2090.jpg

Fair enough LJ,

But if we had brought 15s they would most likely still be in service!

I suspect then Typhoon would have been a none starter though :hmm:

Can the Typhoon do all the stuff that the F.2/ F.3 did, as regards CAP for hours North of Shetland and so on?

Just curious.

When at altitude the Typhoon only sips its fuel.

Maybe they're not so worried about hordes on Tu-22 M's appearing...................

The F14A in the 70s was also dogged with problems with the TF30 which was only seen as an interim engine (that lasted 20 years.....) but the platform had an exceptionally long reach against bomber size targets with the AWG-9 / AIM-54 combination. However, unlike the F2, at least the radar worked.

ISTR this has been discussed previously, and that supposedly RAF/MoD pers were banned from being seen in/around the F14/15 at Paris/SBAC etc as the F2 ADV was as much about politics as capability.

It became a decent interceptor - just before OSD.........

Be fair, the F2 had one unique characteristic - I mean, what other fighter had a ramming speed?.......

Not to mention the world's finest weather radar and a TD box smaller than the target.....

The Messerschmitt 163

Perhaps, but the F2 got an additional kill by flying underneath and ejecting the navigator.....

Did the navigator have to do it himself, or could the pilot enforce the issue?

Seriously though, you've got me curious: under what circumstances would you have rammed anybody in a Tornado? And if you are on a Kamikaze mission, surely the 'ramming' speed should be 'as fast as possible?'

I guess this ramming speed isn't a joke? Last resort to save the motherland from buckets of personally delivered sunshine?

Absolutely, that's why we had the concrete ballast in the nose......

Does this infer some level of survivability? If that's not the difference, it could be said all aircraft are ramming certified.