HUNDREDS turned out across Lancashire to say goodbye to the Lancashire-built Tornado which has been keeping skies safe, at home and abroad, for nearly 40 years.
Staff from BAE at their Samlesbury and Warton aerodromes turned out in droves to bid farewell to the Tornado GRI/4, which can trace its history back to 1980.
And while the RAF fly-past might have been a case of ‘blink and you’ll miss it’, the significance of the brief visit was not lost on the county’s engineers, responsible for assembling and maintaining the crafts.
Arriving en-route from Farnborough, after refuelling, the three planes involved screamed through the skies between Warton and Samlesbury in mere seconds, before heading north to RAF Lossiemouth.
First entering front-line service in 1982, this generation of the Tornado has seen service in Operation Desert Storm and subsequent conflicts across Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
It will be pensioned off at the end of next month, to be replaced by Typhoons and a new fleet of F35 Lightning jets.
Wing Commander James Heeps, who took part in the fly-past, said
earlier: “It is a great privilege to be part of a national event that allows the public to say farewell to a brilliant aircraft that has been the cornerstone of our operations for so many years.
“It’s also a sad occasion because it will mean that from the end of next month the Tornado will never fly again.”
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