The Public Waves off The RAF's Workhorse
IWM Duxford, February 20th 2019, 12:45pm - huge crowds had gathered at the Cambridgeshire Airfield for the highly anticipated flypast of the trio of Tornado GR.4s from RAF Marham. In fact upon arrival, there was tailbacks onto the M11, with huge numbers of people desperate to catch a glimpse of this final public flight - I'd liken it to the morning of one of Duxford's famous airshows, with the sheer numbers of people; helped by it being half term and many parents bringing their children to wave them off and make a day of it at Duxford. Marshalls helped guide traffic into the airfield itself to overflow parking around the Air and Space hangar, while people flooded in on foot as well. Having had a long trek up from the south, it was a relief to get on-sight and join the masses all looking to the skies for the sight of the three-ship of jets.
Looking around at the crowds that day, there was a lot of photographers, journalists and Youtubers - to one side of me was a gentleman recording soundbites for a future video or similar, and to the other was a handful of people in work gear, obviously taking half an hour out to come and see the flypast. I spoke with a couple of people, one of which had come on his bike from nearby Bedford to see them off and then go back to work afterwards, saying he just had to catch the Tornado one last time before its retirement - a sentiment shared by many thousands, and something I hadn't experienced since the Vulcan farewell in 2015, just based on numbers and anticipation.
The official time of the flypast was scheduled for 13:16pm for IWM Duxford, before going on to many locations around the south. As the clock ticked round to 13:15pm, three small specks (and three trails of black smoke) appeared from beyond the ARCo hangar, and every set of eyes, binoculars, and lenses were trained intently on them. Immediately it was evident that they weren't going to fly the airshow line, this being down the runway and bank round past the Land Warfare Museum, but instead fly over the crowds and the hangars themselves. As the jets approached, they pulled back on the power for their pass, and, in a perfect formation, passed straight over the heads of the huge Duxford crowd, before banking around and once again becoming specks, before disappearing, for the last time, beyond the trees and, for many, into the History books.
There was a sombre, almost moment's silence as the jets went out of visual sight - realisation maybe that these planes that had served for 40 years in the RAF in operations around the world, were now in their final days, and final flights.
The single pass was expected, but I think many had small hopes that they might just break away and do a circuit for a second pass. Time constraints for this well timed series of flypasts meant this was not possible, of course. It may have been a brief flypast, but it was enough for many who took an hour from work, brought their families, or were avid aviation followers, to say goodbye to the RAF Tornado.
With the Tornado almost ready to be retired, with only a couple of weeks left of active service, we now look forward to the prospect of seeing what the F-35B Lightning II can achieve, with its fairly big boots to fill. For airshow fans, the hope is to see them out and about at shows in the next couple of years.
But for now, Farewell Tornado.
Photos and words by Matt Silvaire.
