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Landmark Day As Final GR4 Is Delivered

10 Jun 2003

BAE Systems delivered the last of 142 Tornado GR4 Mid Life Update aircraft to the Royal Air Force at a celebration event held at Warton on 10 June.

Representing the Defence Logistics Organisation, Air Chief Marshal Sir Malcolm Pledger, Chief of Defence Logistics, was at the Lancashire plant to officially receive the aircraft. He hailed the introduction of additional improvements during the course of the programme as a great success. He paid tribute to the 'flexibility and commitment' of all on the project to introduce these changes 'with minimal impact on the programme'.

Turning to the future, he described the planned combination of maintenance and further upgrade activities on Tornado as 'innovative and courageous'. He told workers, "They could only be contemplated given the great confidence we have in BAE Systems at Warton, not least derived from your performance on this upgrade programme. I believe it will form the basis of how we design, integrate, test and provide clearance for capability modification in the future."

The 1 billion-plus conversion programme has been extremely demanding from both a budget and aircraft build perspective as Mark Greenhalgh, director strike operations for BAE Systems Customer Solutions & Support business, explains.

"From the outset, the demands of the programme forced us to challenge traditional return-to-works processes and revolutionise the way upgrades are performed. During the course of the programme we reduced the build time for each aircraft by 40 per cent."

The GR4 programme is an update to the GR1 Tornado strike aircraft improves the aircraft's strike capability. The project began on 29 July 1994 with initial development work and the first aircraft was handed over to the customer on 31 October 1997.

The GR4 standard introduces structural improvements and new avionics, which allow new systems such as the Raptor reconnaissance pod, and cutting-edge weapons such as the Storm Shadow cruise missile, to be progressively introduced.

Weapon system improvements includes a thermal imaging and laser designator system, which allows the aircraft to drop laser-guided Paveway bombs. Also new are hands-on throttle and stick controls, a forward looking infra red system (FLIR) and cockpit displays compatible with night vision goggles (NVG).

The GR4 has upgraded guidance and warning systems, with the introduction of a laser inertial navigation system, integrated global positioning system and ground proximity warning system. Together with FLIR and NVG, these provide an extremely effective covert capability.