so obviously it is dear to my heart.
It's not too difficult an aircraft to fly.
Probably the most difficult things that we did
in pure piloting terms was as we're refueling
because again on the ground attack version of the Tornado
the refueling probe was a bit of an afterthought
so it's stuck on the side and it sits in the bow wave.
So when you've approaching the basket
the screen behind the tanker,
the basket moves out in the bow wave
so you've got to aim to miss it knowing that the basket
is gonna move out rather than chasing the basket.
So not an easy aircraft to tank with.
Easy aircraft to fly.
The best thing about the Tornado is at low level
because it's got high bypass engines, very small wings,
the gust response is fantastic.
So it's a very stable comfortable
weapons platform at low level.
The downside of that is because the wing area isn't very big
it struggles at medium and high level
and of course for the last 20 years
that's been the regime that we've normally operated in.
So a Tornado with a full war load struggles
to catch about half the height that you would see
in an airliner flying out to Torremolinos.
