The fat old gits could bomb a target 1500km away on internal fuel, with internally carried bombs. Their low-flying performance is excellent when clean. Trouble is, without TFR, the pilots can’t fly low most of the way. Too tiring.
MiG-23MLD. You haven’t understood me. Yes, the TFR gave the Tornado an advantage over the Buccaneer. But with a TFR – which could have been fitted – one was tested in a Buccaneer before the Tornado was even thought of, & worked pretty well – and the other avionics later fitted to the Tornado, the Buccaneer would have been a much better bomber than the Tornado. The Tornados superior speed is only usable for short dashes, & at the expense of range – which is greatly inferior to the Buccaneers anyway. If I want to sink 4 ships 1500 km out to sea, without getting within 50 km of them, I can do it with one Buccaneer, or two Tornados and a tanker. The Buccaneer will do that quicker than the Tornados, because it can do it with no big draggy tanks hanging off it, & without having to refuel, which slows things down a bit. Which is better?
I don’t understand what you say about a Tornado using its speed to escape enemy fighters or SAMs. Are you seriously suggesting that it could outrun a SAM? Or outrun a fighter armed only with AAMs, when it has a load of bombs & fuel tanks under its wings?
The Tornado has served the RAF pretty well. But I consider it a flawed concept. I think we’d have done better with a real fighter, and a real bomber. And something for CAS.
BTW, how did the TSR.2 become obsolete as an attack concept? It’s exactly what you say is the correct concept, i.e. supersonic at all altitudes & M2+ at high altitude, with TFR & all the other goodies. It was designed to do a supersonic dash to the target. The Tornado was a poor mans version of it. You’re not being consistent.
In the 1960s VG wings were the fashion like todays is Supercruise, stealth or super maneouvrability.
The Panavia Tornado belongs to the 1960s VG wing concept, VG wings offers you STOL with high speeds, the F-111 concept was a fighter-bomber that had STOL with high supersonic speed
The Panavia Tornado has STOL with high speed even with low thrust to weight ratio, the F-111 had several world`s first among them VG wings, Terrain following radar and engines with afterburner in an operational aircraft.
The Buccanner is very slow for two reasons, first very low thrust to weight ratio and a relatively low sweep wing, yes the aircraft has good range and a good payload, but lacks speed and contrary to the Harrier it is not agile, to remain a difficul target to SAMs or Fighters needs to fly very low but it lacks Terrain following radar, this stresses a crew, the F-111, Su-24 and Panavia Tornado got terrain following radar operational from the start for that reason.
STOL was very important in the 1960s, specially for a fully laden strike aircraft, General Dynamics, Sukhoi and Panavia understood that, Sukhoi modified the T-6 with VG wings instead of the Su-15`s proven tailed delta.
The Panavia Tornado was designed as a compact design contrary to the big F-111 or Su-24 but it still delivers large payloads at good range,
The TSR.2 was in that sense not like the F-111 but more like the T-6.1, Sukhoi understood from the begining VG wings were needed to give a large aircraft heavy payloads with STOL, in that the TSR.2 was a flawed design for the 1960s besides the fact England could not afford it
Did you read any of what I said?
The Tornado can fly at M1.2 at sea level, clean, with afterburner. That is completely irrelevant to its usefulness as a strike aircraft. With weapons, at low level, the Buccaneer & Tornado fly at the same speed. With some loads (e.g. 4 x 1000lb bombs, fuel for 1500 km strike mission) Buccaneer is faster. Do you know why?
The Tornado is immensely superior as a fighter. But that’s not what we’re discussing.
You’re confusing the platforms (what I said) with the systems. As a platform, for strike, the Buccaneer is at least as good as a Tornado. Terrain following radar could have been fitted to Buccaneer. It was considered, which would have given Buccaneer the same ability years before Tornado entered service, & was rejected because of political infighting between the RAF & RN.
Development of a TFR variant of Blue Parrot went the same way as TSR.2. The Tornado TFR was tested in a Buccaneer – one of two Buccs to have one. The other was the testbed for the TSR.2s TFR. Shows it could have been done.
Swerve
I did read what you wrote, but consider that without Terrain Following Radar the Buccaneer was wasted to a high degree, if the Panavia Tornado included Terrain Following Radar and the Buccaneer did not well that is because of economics, yes always the newer aircraft will include the most advanced package, why? simply because the newer aircraft can exploit better new weapons and avionics and when you have limited budgets it`s better and more cost effective fit the newer aircraft with all such new technologies.
In the real world the military needs to choose the most cost effective weapon system and in that the Panavia Tornado beat the Buccaneer
In the 1970s the idea of Supercruise was not as important as it`s now, the extra boost and speed the Panavia Tornado can get will help it to anihilate the target and return safe to it`s base.
The Panavia Tornado can cruise at the same speed the Bucanner can but will go faster if needed with Terrain Following radar or simply go faster to escape from enemy fighters or SAMs.
In the 1970s a fast attack aircraft with Terrain following radar assured stealthiness, for the 1970s the Buccaneer was in that sense obsolete.
A terrain following radar is really an excellent tool at low altitude because it helps the pilot to a such degree to do not crash into the ground
The Panavia Tornado was the European Equivalent to the F-111 and the Su-24 while the Buccaner was more in the class of the A-6 Intruder
The TSR.2 was very similar to the Sukhoi T-6 but as the Su-24 got VG and terrain Following radar the Panavia Tornado followed similar lines because the F-111 was so advanced in the 1960s that the TSR.2 and Buccaneer became obsolete as attack aircraft concepts when the F-111 entered service
But the Buccaneer could have been fitted with equivalent avionics to those the Tornado entered service with, before the Tornado was built. The reasons for not doing so were mostly political. Terrain following radar & a lot more were under development in the early 1960s, for the TSR.2, & the Royal Navy was pushing for them to be incorporated into the Bucc. The RAF strongly opposed it, because they saw a Buccaneer with decent avionics as a threat to the TSR.2. Unfortunately, when the TSR.2 was canned, so were its avionics, despite navy lobbying for them to be used in the Bucc. So the RAF (which ended up with Buccaneers after all) shot themselves in the foot.
The Tornado serves as an interceptor, which is something the Bucc couldn’t do. For that role, it is undoubtedly far superior. But as a strike platform, it has no advantages over the Buccaneer. The higher low-level speed is only achievable with afterburner, & using it on a strike mission would mean aborting due to excessive fuel use. In practice, with a ground-air weapons load, they have about the same operating speed. In the 1990-91 Gulf War, Tornados & Buccaneers sometimes flew joint strike missions, both at their normal operating speeds – i.e. the same speed.
The Buccaneer has one great advantage as a strike aircraft: range. Any load the Tornado can deliver the Buccaneer can deliver over a greater distance. Its internal weapons carriage sometimes came in handy, as well.
As for weapons delivery accuracy: well, that depends on avionics, & for a while in the 1980s & early 1990s, the RAFs highest precision strike missions could be flown by Buccaneers alone, or by Tornados accompanied by Buccaneers to mark targets for them, because they couldn’t do it themselves.
Swerve
The Buccaneer is slower at sea level, the Panavia Tornado can get Mach 1.2 at sea level, the Buccaneer won`t surpass the Mach 0.92 at sea level.
The Blackburn Bucanner can not be better than the Panavia Tornado simply because the Panavia Tornado it`s newer, faster and has better avionics, VG gives excellent performance to the Panavia Tornado, it`s true for a subsonic aircraft well the Blackburn Buccaneer flies fast very low but it`s Blue Parrot radar did not have terrain-following capabilities so the real aircraft that can fly low hugging the ground is the Panavia Tornado not the Buccaneer.
http://www.air-defense.net/dossier/9/intro9.jpg
In 2006 with SCALP the Panvia Tornado is much much better weapon than any Blackburn Bucanner variant ever was.
Although I agree that the Tornado does not represent a big step in performance, actually it is a step back in some areas, the linked website has some doubtful information:
– The Tornado can fly at low level. It does not brake and crack when it flies more than 2h55min in low level. I think the author (due to the presented information I don’t consider him as an aviation expert) has misinterpreted some information.
I give out praise for everybody who can provide me the following information:
– speed with max dry thrust at low level for Tornado GR.1 (=IDS) with 2xECM/Chaff, 2x Fuel, 2x AIM-9 and typical medium drag ordonance (2x HARM or 2x 2.000lb LGB or 4x CBU).
– operational range with same configuration considering high-low-high profile
– maximum sustainable altitude and speed in max dry with that configurationThe Tornado suffers from its versatility and the supersonic performance. The Buccaneer carries most fuel and payload inside giving him much better drag characteristics. The Tornado is generally too small, at least for today’s standards. For the low-level attack against heavily defended targets in a Cold War environment it was best suited.
I guess the Panavia Tornado`s advantages over the Buccaneer are higher speed, higher weapons load and better avionics.
By better avionics it means better situational awareness and weapons accuracy delivery.
The Buccanner is a subsonic attack aircraft while the Tornado can fly at more than twice the speed the Blackburn Buccaneer can
At sea level the Tornado is also faster it`s maximum speed at sea level : 920mph(1,480km/h) while the Balckburn Buccaneer only gets to Mach 0.92(1040km/h)
well if the money technological risk were no concern, how would u modernize your favorite aircraft?
Mirage 2000-5Mk2
F100-PW 229 (with Thrust vectoring nozzle 😀 ) instead of Snecma m53-2
moving canards instead the small static.
RBE2-AA Radar
Thales/SAGEM OSF infrared search and track system
Thales Spectra ECM
comformal fuel tanks😀 😀 😀
I would put into production the Yak-141 modernized with new avionics, radar, uprated engines with Supercruise and armed with R-37, Python V, Meteor and R-77
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