Crusader2000
Banned Member
Does anybody believe the UK could find a export customer for its secondhand ADV Tornado's? If, so what country would be the likely buyer???
ADV Tornado
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Scorpion82
New Member
I think that's more than unlikely. Who would like a low performing long range interceptor with just a few hours of service life being left. It's as would someone ask if anyone would buy the used F-15A-Ds in service with the USAF. The Tornado is not the cheapest aeroplane to operate, its performance is at best modest, though its electronic equipment and weapons aren't that bad, but that's it.
Crusader2000
Banned Member
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Oh, I think the Tornado's still could be operated for many years. Yet, you are correct in the fact that they're expensive to operate. Maybe the UK would give them away for free. In exchange for the customer paying the cost to upgrade them.........
How about the Philippine Air Force for example?
Which, is not to say I consider it likely. Just hate to see such modern aircraft go to waste....
Scorpion82
New Member
I have no idea how much flight hours are left on those airframes, but the aircraft are between 17 and 22 years old. I don't expect the ADV to be designed to last longer than the IDS (4000 h). So you might squeeze out some more hours, but it's questionable if it makes much sense at all.Let alone that the Tornado ADV is a quite specialised aircraft. The Italians have phased them out earlier than expected, the RSAF has phased them out and the RAF will retire that type in 2011 according to current plans. So does it really make sense to continue operations with a new operator, just to replace them in another 10 years or so?Oh, I think the Tornado's still could be operated for many years. Yet, you are correct in the fact that they're expensive to operate. Maybe the UK would give them away for free. In exchange for the customer paying the cost to upgrade them.........
How about the Philippine Air Force for example?
Which, is not to say I consider it likely. Just hate to see such modern aircraft go to waste....
Blue Streak
Banned Member
Yes I agree that the Philippine Air Force can be the right export customer for the RAF Tornadoes since the UK has had 2 successful transactions with the Philippine Military: the 3 Peacock-class corvettes to the Philippine Navy and the 150 Simba APCs to the Philippine Army. It is the Philippine Air Force's turn to have British war machines!Oh, I think the Tornado's still could be operated for many years. Yet, you are correct in the fact that they're expensive to operate. Maybe the UK would give them away for free. In exchange for the customer paying the cost to upgrade them.........
How about the Philippine Air Force for example?
Which, is not to say I consider it likely. Just hate to see such modern aircraft go to waste....
One drawback of the Tornado ADV is the high operating cost. It's totally unsuitable for the Philippines. Secondhand F-16s would probably be their best option, or some ex-Swedish Air Force Gripens & pool maintenance with the Thais, or go to Korea for the fighter version of the T-50.
Ozzy Blizzard
New Member
It begs the question why the Philippine Air Force would want a cold war vintage dedicated supersonic interceptor in the first place? You may as well give them Tomcats to try and keep operational. Not going to be much good as a COIN CAS platform is it? Still, handy if you have a few Backfires to shoot down, not sure how many are floating around the South China Sea these days...
OT: Regarding the F14 Tomcat, How about the MIG23 which is cheaper than the F14?
The F-14 wasn't a serious suggestion - the F-14 fleet was destroyed after its retirement to prevent the acquisition of spare parts by Iran. Re the MiG-23, it's not in production and those that exist are almost certainly worn out to the point of being pointless to acquire. There are better options
What is the operating cost of the Tornado? The Philippine Government under the new president promised to increase defense spending by up to 50% to address the main concern that the current defense budget is not enough to acquire modern warships and warplanes for the Philippine military.
And to what I have read, there are 2 kinds of Tornadoes: the air defense interceptor and the multi-role fighter. Which is the ADV? What the Philippine Air Force is really looking for is a fast all-weather combat-proven modern 2-seat multi-role fighter variant. I am not sure though about the "2-seat" part of the description but I guess they want to eliminate the human error cause of aircraft accidents which is a common issue.
But of course, to avoid getting off-topic - there was a thread created for the PAF multi-role fighter search entitled philippines-air-force-admits-no-fighter-jets-until-2011
Ozzy Blizzard
New Member
Significant. Any high hour airframe will be maintenance intensive; it’s just the nature of the beast unfortunately. Tornadoes are more maintenance intensive than most due to the variable geometry wing and all of the extra machinery that requires. All of the RAF's ADV's are nearing the end of their service life, they will be very expensive to maintain.
ADV stands for Air Defence Variant. It is a dedicated long range supersonic interceptor; it has very limited strike capability. The Tornado IDS is the strike variant; it is, to my knowledge, incapable of BVR combat (unless you use ASRAAM at long range). Neither is a multirole platform and both are very expensive to acquire and maintain.
If that is the case then the Philippine Air Force might not take the ADV because they want an MRF. Is the Tornado IDS also near retirement by the RAF? Is it also nearing the end of their service life? What is BVR combat? Will the Italians and Germans be retiring their Tornadoes or have already retired them?
*sigh* sorry for too many curious questions... :smash
Ozzy Blizzard
New Member
It’s also far too expensive to maintain.
Yes and yes.
BVR stands for Beyond Visual Range; the ability to engage a threat at ranges beyond the ability of human sight. For a fighter to be even remotely competitive against run of the mill air threats it needs a BVR capability.
The Italians already retired their ADV's, I think the Germans are in the process of replacing their IDS' with Typhoon (same with the RAF).
No worries.
The Italians & Germans will, like the RAF & Saudis, keep some IDS Tornadoes in service until the 2020s. Those are being modernised.
Only the 80 Tornado Recce and ECR will be fully modernized (under "ASSTA 2", running since 2005).
The German Tornado IDS aircraft will only receive partial upgrades to fill their role until the last are retired by 2017/18 (replaced by EF), such as e.g. the Taurus cruise missile integration.
The German Tornado IDS aircraft will only receive partial upgrades to fill their role until the last are retired by 2017/18 (replaced by EF), such as e.g. the Taurus cruise missile integration.
What happened to the retired Italian Tornadoes? Of the 3 countries that jointly developed the Panavia Tornado, which has the youngest fleet? Is the GR4 a remake of an existing air frame or a completely new air frame with upgrades?
Ahh yes when I was a kid I remembered reading a science & technology encyclopedia about missiles that were built for this purpose. I think the name of that missile was the U.S. AIM-54 Phoenix? :coffee
The Royal Saudi Air Force will be upgrading some 80 Panavia Tornado IDS and ADV at a cost of $4.66 billion to make them serviceable until 2020 while 24 will be returned to the UK in a buy back package part of the Al Salam deal.
What is this buy back deal? What will happen to those Tornadoes that will be returned because of this deal? Why return them and not sell them (to the Philippines) instead?
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The Italian Tornado ADVs were leased RAF aircraft. They were returned to the UK, & I believe they have been scrapped, as have most of the retired IDS Tornadoes. The Saudis are retiring all their 24 ADV Tornadoes. Only Saudi IDS Tornadoes are being upgraded. I see that Wikipedia reports that the Saudi ADVs will be bought back by the UK, but I can't see why we would want them, except perhaps as as spares sources for the GR4s: we only have one squadron of ADV Tornadoes left, & they'll be retired soon.
The UK & Germany have Tornadoes of about the same age. I cannot say which have been used most intensively. I think the newest Italian Tornadoes are older than the newest German & British airframes.
The GR4 is an upgrade. The last new Tornado was completed in 1998.
Because as it has been mentioned to you quite a few times they would be too expensive for the PAF to operate.
In the same way that I could afford to purchase a 35 year old Boeing 737-200 but could not afford to run the damn thing - therefore, there would be no point in me buying the 737 in the first place.