Eyes to the skies this afternoon as three RAF Tornado’s say farewell over Flintshire

Flintshire will be treated to a ‘three ship’ Tornado flypast this afternoon as the RAF gets set to retire the fast jet after 40 years of service.

All Tornado jets on active duty overseas have now returned to the UK in preparation for retirement in March.

To mark the retirement, three days of farewell flypast have been scheduled from today, Wednesday and Thursday.

This afternoon three of the iconic jets will be seen in the skies above Flintshire, weather and aircraft ‘serviceability’ permitting.

In an update this morning RAF Flight Commander Matt Bressani of 31 Squadron confirmed the ‘three ship’ flypast will take place today, he said:

“For the first of the Finale Flypasts today the guys have just had Met Brief [weather] and looked at the aircraft.

We’re still looking good for a three-ship up, however, unfortunately, both the camo jet and the 9 Squadron jet (aircraft with special colour schemes) are unavailable today.”

The three Tornado’s taking part in todays leg of the farewell tour will leave RAF Marham in East Anglia at 1pm, they will fly west to the Midlands taking in several RAF bases and MoD sites including DECA Stafford and RAF Cosford and Shawbury.

The jets will then make their way across Shropshire and into North Wales where they will perform a flypast over the Defence Electronics & Components Agency (DECA) within the grounds of the former RAF base at Sealand at 1.38pm.

All times and locations can be found on the map created by EXGWinfo Group

The weapons capabilities of the soon-to-retire Tornados are now being delivered by RAF Typhoon jets, which will continue to take a leading role in the Coalition’s mission against Daesh.

The Tornado will be officially retired from service at the end of March and will only be used for training purposes over the UK in the intervening period.

It is understood one of the retiring Tornado’s will be handed to DECA Sealand.

Originally named the Tornado GR1 the aircraft’s first use in live operations was during the Gulf War in 1991, when 60 Tornado GR1s were deployed from bases in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

Later they were upgraded to the GR4 model, which has been used ever since over the skies of Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

DECA Sealand has provided repair, overhaul and upgrade services for the Tornado avionics equipment.

Significantly, DECA Sealand has been chosen as the global repair hub for the F-35 jet where components for hundreds of European-based aircraft will be serviced and maintained.

The global repair hub will secure hundreds of highly skilled jobs and millions in investment in the region, with the potential to unlock more than £2 billion of future F-35 support revenue over the lifetime of the programme.

Pictures MOD.