If you watch the 360 video, you can hear the sound in sync with the flying. ;)
Pity the noise cancellation seems to remove just about all background apart from some electronic breakthrough.

OAP

As with the criticism of Sunday night’s TV show, this is missing the point. The fact that about 15 minutes of Wg Cdr Heeps’s material made it to air on the Today programme means that it was pitched correctly for the audience. There were some nuggets in there which may stick in the mind of the ‘opinion-forming’ classes simply for having been broadcast, and if nothing else it’s exposure for the RAF among urbanites who see nothing of it. If it he had given dry technical stuff it would mostly have been binned.

This is what I wrote: "Overall, her reporting was good I thought, although the description of Tornado GR1 being in it's operational element at 250' day VFR by Wg Cdr Heeps was lightweight. How about, Day/Night IMC 200', VFR 100' Strike/Attack."

IMO, he downplayed the Tornado capability and then, went on to point out that OLF might well be required by stealthy aircraft. Not a matter of being "dry", a gentle 250' navex should have been described as such. ;)

OAP

Just listened to the piece and I thought she did very well. I had a little shock when they mentioned that the Tornado will be out of service within a year. When I left the RAF in 1977 there were still two years before the aircraft (which was still called the MRCA) was to enter RAF service, so in my mind it is still a "new" aircraft. Just another function of getting old I suppose :(

I remember when the Tornado had just entered service there were four or maybe six on the western ramp at Biggin Hill in connection with a fly past, presumably over London - first I'd seen other than development aircraft at Farnborough... Must have been summer 1980?

Less than 40 year's service life seems quite short compared with some other types!

Treadigraph
 

The vast majority of those years were spent on Ops though. Right up until the bitter end.

Few other platforms can boast of a record like that.

BV

Add to which the blue on blue in Iraq when an RAF GR4 was shot down by a Patriot missile when returning to its base in Kuwait in 2003, highlighted its vulnerability.

Unlike Scotland, there are no mountains or deep valleys in the Baltic region to snuggle up to. It is as flat as a pancake. To be a successful ground attack a/c in that NATO region of special interest, it needs stealth.

It suffered an IFF failure. Any non-stealthy ac with a similar problem and flight parameters could have met the same fate.

Not even the Americans intend to have a 100% stealth-capable attack fleet. The stealth ac need to be capable of suppressing air defences for long enough to get the non-stealthy bomb trucks in and out again; you can't achieve much with the internal bomb load of F-35!! And even over the flat sea, the radar horizon is still a useful ally against land-based SAM. Typhoon, F15E, B1 and B52 have years left in them and will continue to find employment.

Has anyone worked out what caused the “Jesus Mary and Joseph” moment? OC IX talks about the “ brakes “ but I couldn’t see any sign of the air brakes on the 360 deg film ( I know it may not be synchronised) and they are pretty mild in the Tornado anyway . I thought it was all good coverage for the Today listening public. Well done all-even the BBC.

I could see them (well, the right-hand-one, I assume they came out together!) in the 360 film. He talks about putting them in after her complaints and you can see it go in again. I reckon she must have been suffering the somatogravic illusion of pitching down under deceleration; going idle/airbrake in a Tornado at 550kts is pretty harsh in my recollection!

I’ll have another look. She definitely wouldn’t have liked the Buccaneer air brakes then!

Just about to say the same myself. 550kts to 240kts in a matter of a few seconds. Like hitting a brick wall.

Just watched the 18 minutes or so BBC video and I have to say she did far, far better than I would have done. A low level over Somerset in a 47 Sqn Herc proved too me that my ear canals are not suitable for such circumstances. Bravo to her for maintaining an intelligent conversation whilst enjoying the delights of the Mach Loop etc!

Slight thread drift here but another bit of RAF history fades away

Edinburgh Airport's second runway closes - BBC News

Just a quick question / point on the BBC RAF 100 yrs programme. As well as the “50 yrs in service” error with the chinook I questioned the 03 readiness state ? It might be memory fade over the years but I thought we went to readiness state 02 (ie 2 mins) from a readiness state 05 (ie 5 mins) as opposed to the 3 mins stated in the programme ? I thought it was Readiness State 15 - 05 - 02 - scramble . . . any old thoughts on that ?

Air Marshal has one ‘l’.

Well spotted!

Although I have good uncorrected distance vision, after many years of reading countless lever arch files of documents under artificial light, I decided I needed to wear specs for reading and I switched to using speech recognition software for dictation, leaving it to my admin staff to proof read for errors. It is encouraging to know in my retirement that there contributors to this forum willing to step up to plate to fill the void, especially as I stopped using specs altogether a couple of years ago.

I'm surprised no one has posted this yet - performed by the Band of THE Royal Air Force.

Idle Reverse,

That is what I remember as well. RS15 - 05 - 02 - "end off!!"

Bill