(All images (unless stated) by Jerry Gunner (website: Air Forces Monthly), cc-4.0)
As the UK Tornado GR4 force winds down pending the eventual arrival of the F-35, the German air force is also reducing the number of its venerable interdictor/strike aircraft in anticipation of the jet’s retirement in 2020.
In 2004 the German government announced plans to cut the Luftwaffe Tornado fleet from 426 aircraft to 265 by 2015. Ultimately numbers will be reduced to just 85 active airframes before final withdrawal at the end of the decade. And like their UK counterparts, those Tornados not being kept on the books are in the midst of RTP (reduce to produce) and scrapping.
The RTP process involves the salvaging of all useful parts from retired airframes. Even jets that have reached the end of their fatigue lives or maxed-out their airframe hours, and can thus no longer fly, contain thousands of parts that can be reused on serviceable planes.
Above, a complete Tornado IDS is rolled into a hangar and the reclamation process begins.
The radome and engines are removed from the front and rear of the jet, while panels in the side of the Tornado’s nose allow for the removal of sensitive and expensive internal avionics systems.
External parts including the windscreen, cockpit canopy, weapons pylons, undercarriage doors, air brakes, tail fin and other panels are systematically dismantled.
All that remains is the gaunt shell of the Tornado’s fuselage, dead wires that once drove the multi-million pound jet’s complex systems left hanging from its exposed internals. These ‘gutted canoes‘ are then trucked away for final meltdown.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the hangar, a more fortune retired airframe has been given a new coat of gloss grey prior to being donated to a museum. Its sensitive internal equipment may have been removed but the complete jet makes for a great exhibit.
(Image: US Air Force, public domain)
Urban Ghosts insight – put more of the ‘gutted canoes’ to one side so that, once the remaining fleet is finally retired, they can be mated-up with surplus wings, tails and other external components and placed in museums – looking (on the outside, at least) something like the Tornado above. Here’s an example.
Keep reading – check out more retired Tornados here.
