Panavia Tornado GR.1B – ZA456, 617 Dambusters Sqn, RAF Lossiemouth 1995

Hobbymaster 1/72 scale HA6721: Panavia Tornado GR.1 ZA456 of 617 Dambusters Sqn, RAF. This model has a weapon load of 2 Sea Eagle anti shipping missiles under the fuselage.

Length 9.25 inches Wingspan 7.75 inches

As a replacement for the Blackburn Buccaneer at total of 26 GR.1’s were modified to the GR.1B version. The Tornado GR.1B was a specialised anti-shipping variant of the RAF Tornado GR.1. It was based in Scotland at RAF Lossiemouth. Its main weapon in its primary mission was the Sea Eagle missile. When the Tornado strike aircraft of the Royal Air Force were updated to the GR.4 standard in the late 1990s, there was no corresponding GR.4B version of the GR.1B. It was judged that a specialised anti-shipping variant of the aircraft was no longer needed as the threat from surface warships the GR.1B was designed to operate against, had decreased and also because the Sea Eagle missile was coming towards the end of its shelf-life and there were no plans to replace it due to the cost of doing so.

The Panavia Tornado was a joint effort between the UK, West Germany and Italy to produce a two-seat, dual-engine aircraft with variable-sweep wings. The Tornado took its maiden flight on August 14, 1974 with the first aircraft being delivered to the German Air Force on July 27, 1979. There are three main variants of the Tornado, the IDS (interdictor/strike), ECR (electronic combat/reconnaissance) and ADV (air defence variant) interceptor. By the end of production in 1998 there had been 992 aircraft of all versions built of which 745 were IDS variants.