Rolling scissors by Simon Cattlin

The Tornado F3 is the air defense variant of the very successful GR1 strike aircraft and was introduced as the stop gap between the retirement of the Lighting F6 / Phantom FGR2 and the introduction of the Typhoon.

The initial F2 version ( manual swing wing with concrete radar ) was quickly superceded by the F3 version and 152 F3’s were ordered in 1986. Whist no-one could claim the Tornado F3 was a world class dog-fighter in fairness it was designed as a cold war interceptor and was optimized for that role. The Tornado F3 force has now been largely replaced by Typhoon units although 12 are still in operational use as of early 2010. Its still a potent mach 2 weapons platform.

23 Squadron operated the Tornado F3 from the late 1980’s until 1994 when the Squadron disbanded as part of defense cuts.

The inspiration for the painting was a very clear afternoon on the north coast of Norfolk watching some low and mid level interception practice between Tornado crews, I’ve placed three aircraft in a turning fight with ZE835 in re-heat in a climbing port turn to engage the other two.