Hey, it’s in Wichita!
SOC?

Yeah, i saw the ‘328 pic at Airliners, that’s what started off the confusion for me.

If you look at the nose of 328 at the Brimstone pic (above the fuel tank’s fins / landing gear doors and below the intake), it does seem to be in camo. I think i can see the colour demarcation there.

It’s strange though – 328 doesn’t look all too brilliant on the Brimstone pic either, especially not for a (not all too often flying and well taken care of) test aircraft which has been resprayed less than six months earlier.

The picture Google posted appearantly has ZA354 on it though. At least it seems to be carrying the same payload as 354 is on this Airliners-pic (click)

ZA328 is also confirmed at Warton at the following (excellent) Tornado-tracker: http://homepages.enterprise.net/corkish/PROD.htm
Perhaps someone has contacts with the Warton community to check it there? It’s nitpicking, but now i want to know 😉

TV-guided missiles basically use the same feature as your SLR’s autofocus. It locks onto a specific contrast point, and uses that as it’s reference. Advanced, but nothing really special or cutting edge.

-24- is not a Tu-22M, it’s a Tu-22(A, to be picky). The -M series are the Backfires.

-27- Il-2m3
-28- An-22
-29- MiG M.105 space shuttle testbed thingie
-30- MiG-25P with mutilated fins
-31- Il-28
-32- Tu-22M-0 Backfire
-33- Some veeeery old Tupolev thingie.
-34- An-12 under the tail of a Mi-26, and with two lovely Yak-28s in the background.
-35- Tu-16

And the Bartini VVA-14 on Vulcan’s pic looks terribly sad, i’m afraid it’s chances of survival are getting slimmer and slimmer…

The ANT-25 from pic -12- is a replica by the way, and not even to full scale. The real ANT-25 record plane in which Chkalovsk made his famous over-the-north-pole flights to the US still exists though, it is in the native hometown (village or settlement is a better word) of Chkalov, appropriately named Chkalovsk, to the NW of Nizhnii Novgorod. There is one of very few I-17s there as well http://aeroweb.lucia.it/~agretch/Museums/Chkalov.html

Here is a lineup, the I-17 in front, then an I-16, and then the original ANT-25RD ‘Stalinskii Marshrut’

Till death do you part…. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, that’s now.

Bangladesh’ MiG-29s are for sale since the summer of 2002. They might be flown occasionally to keep them airworthy, but they are not any longer operational. The MiG-29 proved too costly to operate in such small numbers, and funds to buy more (and then retire either the F-7 or A-5 completely) to make the operating cost a bit more worthwile were never found.

Exit Bangladesh as a MiG-29 user.

Still, a pretty old pic, i guess. I think ZA328 is now in the nice red/white/blue Raspberry colour scheme. But it’s still a GR.1, so that would match.

Storm Shadow is a stand-off weapon anyway. Chances of intercept suddenly drop if you don’t have to come close to the target anymore.

Not that this loadout is operationally feasible though. I don’t think RAF planners would be very happy if a Tornado with four Storm Shadows would go u/s during a mission – better to have two aircraft carry them.

Funny that it’s still a GR.1 Tornado though. Google, i assume it’s an older pic? Unfortunately there are no markings on the Tor (not even SAOEU’s), but i believe ZA328 was lent out to BAe systems for weapon trials.

Note that apart from the Storm Shadows it carries the usual BOZ chaff cutter (unconfirmed if it’s a cutter, but very likely) Cerberus ECM pod and (two?) ALARMs. Probably just checking if the pylons have to be misaligned 😀