Hobby Master 1/72 HA6707 Tornado IDS 43+44, MFG1, German Navy, 1980s

The Panavia Tornado was a joint effort between the UK, West Germany and Italy to produce a two-seat, dual-engine aircraft with variable-sweep wings. The Tornado took its maiden flight on August 14, 1974 with the first aircraft being delivered to the German Air Force on July 27, 1979. There are three main variants of the Tornado, the IDS (interdictor/strike), ECR (electronic combat/reconnaissance) and ADV (air defense variant) interceptor. By the end of production in 1998 there had been 992 aircraft of all versions built of which 745 were IDS variants.

The first unit of the Bundeswehr to receive the new Tornado was MFG-1 (Naval Aviation Group 1) that was formed in 1959. In the summer of 1977 the first Tornado arrived for testing but it wasn’t until July 2, 1982 before the MFG-1 received their first aircraft. A total of 57 Tornados equipped MFG-1 but they encountered several staffing and spare parts problems. Because of these problems all the other Bundeswehr squadrons used these to learn from and avoid. Tornado IDS 43+44 c/n 121/GT025/4044 was written off on September 24, 1999.