@ March 2018
Tucson, AZ
My first close encounter with a Panavia Tornado was at the Pima Air & Space Museum. Panavia was formed in 1968 as a tri-national consortium consisting of British Aerospace, MBB of West Germany, and Aeritalia of Italy to design a replacement for the F-104 Starfighter. The IDS were interdictor/strike variants, the most common model. The German Marineflieger operated 112 Tornado IDS, all retired in June 2005. First flown in 1974, the Tornado was the second fighter in the world to use thrust reversers to improve short-field performance. 990 would be produced from 1979-98.