Panavia Tornado

what is it?

The Panavia Tornado is a family of twin-engine, variable-sweep wing multi-role combat aircraft, jointly developed and manufactured by Italy, the United Kingdom, and Germany. There are three primary Tornado variants: the Tornado IDS (interdictor/strike) fighter-bomber, the Tornado ECR (electronic combat/reconnaissance) SEAD aircraft, and the Tornado ADV (air defence variant) interceptor aircraft. The Tornado was developed and built by Panavia Aircraft GmbH, a tri-national consortium consisting of British Aerospace (previously British Aircraft Corporation), MBB of West Germany, and Aeritalia of Italy.

🔎How to recognise it: 2 jet engines · 13.9 m wingspan

base stats

• speed 2,400 km/htop speed
• range 2,780 kmwithout refuelling
• size 27.2 tmax take-off weight
• built 992made in total

Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).

fun facts

• 🎂First flew 52 years ago, in 1974.
• 🏎️Top speed is 18.5× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
• 💥Faster than sound: up to Mach 1.9 (sea-level speed of sound ≈ 1,235 km/h).
• 🚗Wingspan of 13.9 m: about 3 cars parked nose to tail.
• 🐘Fully loaded it can weigh as much as 5 African elephants (~6 t each).
• 🌍Range of 2,780 km: 15× Amsterdam to Brussels.
• 🏔️Can fly 1.7× higher than Mount Everest (8,849 m).

jet: Gas turbine pushing air out the back (turbofan or turbojet): fast and high-flying.

spec sheet

first flight

1974-08-14

introduced

1980

retired

2019

status

still flying

number built

992

role

multirole aircraft, strike aircraft

origin

🇮🇹 Italy

makers

Panavia Aircraft GmbH

engines

2× Turbo-Union RB199-34R Mk 103

crew

2

length

16.7 m

wingspan

13.9 m

height

6 m

max take-off weight

27.2 t

top speed

2,400 km/h

range

2,780 km

ceiling

15,240 m

wings

monoplane

Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.

family