PANAVIA Tornado GR.1

Here’s the 4th of my lockdown builds, the PANAVIA Tornado GR.1, in the colours of ZA447/EA 'MiG Eater' RAF No.15 Squadron, Operation Granby, 1991 ‘First Gulf War’.

Introduced into service in 1979, the Tornado replaced the Lightening which, you may recall, started me off on this model building epic. Coincidentally, just as my Lightening adorned an unusual green paint scheme following its posting from UK to Germany, the Tornado dropped its tradition green and grey camouflage following its posting from Germany to the Gulf!

This model is painted in that specialist desert pink camouflage over-wash and carries a distinctive shark teeth nose art decoration, which has been a feature of many military aircraft through various campaigns (I can see a future possible theme here).

Carrying the name 'MiG Eater', this aircraft was thought to have destroyed an Iraqi Air Force MiG-29 fighter (hence the name), whilst completing an airfield denial mission, over Iraq. It was later discovered that it was actually a Mirage F.1, but ZA447 was one of the busiest Tornados over the Gulf, completing 40 combat missions for coalition air forces.