Tornado's over Wigan?????

Hi! I don’t usually post to this board as I don’t feel that I know enough about modern military aviation to warrant a comment, but I was wondering if some of you guys can help me. I live in London now so can’t provide any more information/substantiate this:

I got a call from a mate who said that at around 1400 today he saw 3 (he says) Tornado’s fly in formation over Wigan, Lancashire (southbound) at around 1000 – 2000ft with their wheels down. He described them as Tornado’s as he has seen them before and said that they looked brown in colour and had an orange coloured radome (but he says this could be the sun, he knows Tornado’s don’t have orange radomes!)

My parents then said they saw another at 1600 doing the same, roughly following the M6 South!

The only place that they have Tornado’s near where I live is either Warton or Samlesbury but the do all their testing over the Ribble estuary, Irish Sea, Pennines or the Lake District.

Can anyone shed any light on this, where they had come from? where they were going? and why they were flying south so low with their wheels down, miles from any suitable airfield?

In my 25 years of living in Wigan and being an avid aircraft enthusiast for about 23 of those, I have never seen a military jet fly over that area, even in the eighties…. lots of civil traffic going into Manchester or Liverpool but never a military jet……..!

Thanks,

Paul.