CHAPTER 11

ADVANCING THE TRAINING

The second half of the early RAF training pattern was at TWCU, the Tornado Weapons Conversion Unit, and it was on that course that I had perhaps the unhappiest time of my entire RAF career. I had enjoyed the TTTE, whose teaching style could have been described in those days as ‘modern’ – learning by objectives and all that. I’d felt that I’d got a good grounding on the aircraft and was ready for the advanced phase.

But very soon after arriving at Honington I perceived a rather peculiar ethos. The attitude seemed to be that ‘you’ve wasted enough time at that mamby-pamby TTTE, now we’re going to shake you up with some proper RAF training’. An example came in the first week of groundschool when the instructor detected a weakness in the knowledge of a young navigator on my course. He probed more deeply with another question, with my colleague stumbling once more. There would be no respite; the next salvo was posed in terms of: “What does mister silly think might be the answer to this?” The victim, unsurprisingly, crumbled with embarrassment. As we left the classroom I engaged the instructor. “Did you realise,” I asked, “that you lost Bloggs after the first ten minutes of the lesson? He took in nothing at all after you’d destroyed him.” “Well I can’t help that”, the man replied. “This is a hard school and if he can’t keep up he’ll be out.” Probably unwisely, I persisted: “Wouldn’t it be a good idea to try to bring the best out of weaker students?” “Standards are high here,” he said, “if he doesn’t make it, that’s tough.”

Well of course I’d been through tough courses before. When I first flew Hunters it was axiomatic that if you didn’t ‘catch up, number two’ you’d be dead! The RAF was training combat crews; standards were indeed high and weak links in the chain were not required. But I still think that the bullying type of approach was, in 1991, as old fashioned as bi-planes; students learn in different ways and at different rates, and there were smarter ways of realising their potential. Not least, the RAF had invested a lot in its students by the time they’d reached the TWCU stage, so the cost-effective solution was to get people through rather than wash them out.

Oddly, I understand that the Buccaneer OCU at Honington had had a similarly hard-nosed reputation, so perhaps it was the place. But for whatever reason I never really recovered any sort of good working relationship with the TWCU staff and was grateful to escape with a bare pass. Incidentally, the young nav at the centre of the story came to my squadron and became a useful citizen – and in later life transitioned to a second career as an airline pilot.

Anyway, there was no doubt fault on both sides, and the Tornado training machine has produced consistently excellent products. There were also many very good instructors amongst the TWCU staff, so let’s hear from one of them, Simon Dobb, whom I met while he was doing a stint at the TTTE. Later, he went on to command XV(R) Squadron, the combined OCU, so he’s ideally placed to comment (not necessarily agreeing with the views I’ve expressed) on Tornado training.

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AIR COMMODORE SIMON DOBB (RETD)

In 2012 I attended a dinner night at the RAF College to celebrate the Tornado’s thirty years in service. It was a marvellous occasion and a great opportunity to meet up with old friends and colleagues, some of whom I hadn’t seen for over two decades. As we reminisced about the early days, the ‘war stories’ became more exaggerated and louder as the evening progressed. Almost without exception, individuals had a tale to recount of their passage through the training system. That system was a vital and ever-present support to those thirty years of stalwart service; like all training regimes, it can be guaranteed to trigger vivid memories, both good and bad, from those who pass through it.

Tornado training certainly filled a full three tours of my own flying career. Initial conversion aside, those tours ranged from one as a flight lieutenant QWI at Honington in the mid 1980s, through a tour as the boss of one of the squadrons at the TTTE, to command of XV(R) Squadron at Lossiemouth at the turn of the century. Altogether, a period of over twenty years of the aircraft’s service, until age and promotion percolated me onward and upward to other things. Here goes, then, with a compendium of personal reflections on those two decades.

The TTTE is discussed elsewhere, but I can’t resist a few short lines from my viewpoint. As an endorsement of NATO cooperation and combined training the TTTE was a huge success. However, I don’t think anyone would hold it up as an exemplar of demanding or cost-effective training. The bar was not set very high and there was much more that could have been achieved in the thirty-five or so flying hours allocated. Certainly, for pilots who had flown the Buccaneer, Phantom, Harrier, Jaguar or Lightning, the Tornado was a piece of cake to fly, with none of the vicious vices of its predecessors. For the navigators, once they had got to grips with the modern electronic cockpit, the new aircraft’s potential was obvious. In saying ‘modern’ it’s sobering to think that early Tornados had an 8K main computer, which seems barely credible as I type e-mails on my 16GB iPhone!

Moving to RAF Honington and the TWCU (later known also as 45[R] Squadron and, later still, XV[R] Squadron) we certainly knew we were back in the RAF. It was not that the unit was overly oppressive, but rather that it offered a stark contrast to the relaxed, relatively undemanding atmosphere prevalent at the TTTE. The usual RAF standards were (re)applied and trainee crews exposed to a steep learning curve to catch up on some of the ‘wasted’ hours flown beforehand. In a short time we covered laydown, loft and dive bombing, and strafe. Then there was ACT, while throughout there was emphasis on the TF flying that was the heart of the Tornado’s low-level, all-weather capability. Needless to say, all this was bread and butter to operational ground-attack crews; however, the student composition was a strange mix. The number of first-tour crews was increasing to meet the rising demand of the expanding force in the UK and Germany, but there were still a good number of crews converting from other aircraft types, including remnants of the V force. All told, a broad spectrum of experience and ability for the instructors to manage, and although the syllabus was designed around the training needs of first-tour crews, pilots and navigators from across the experience spectrum fell by the wayside.

This eclectic crew mix certainly made the early days interesting as trainees compared Tornado’s pros and cons with their previous aircraft. Buccaneer crews loved the wonderful navigation and weapon-aiming kit but criticised the lack of legs, while erstwhile Jaguar pilots raved about the increased range but thought the rear cockpit and ‘talking ballast’ would have been better used for additional fuel. Fast-jet aircrew are not known to be shrinking violets, and many a heated debate was had both in the crewroom and, of course, in the bar at Friday night ‘twofers’.

Following a short tour in Germany I returned to the UK as an instructor – poacher turned gamekeeper – on the TWCU; having spent two consecutive tours in Germany a posting back in Blighty was a welcome break. The Cold War was moving towards its denouement in the mid 1980s, although we didn’t know it at the time, but during my Germany tours I’d spent the equivalent of a short prison sentence behind the barbed wire and watchtowers in the QRA compound. How distant that all seems today.

Although not an operational squadron, the TWCU was great fun, demanding in its own way and equally rewarding. The staff at the time had a mix of backgrounds, experience and age, reflecting the throughput to the new jet. There was a wealth of talent, confirmed by the many who went on to command their own squadrons, with some attaining air rank. The boss was the marvellous Gordon McRobbie, a hugely popular and great leader who sadly passed away in 2014. I don’t think I have ever been on a squadron where the boss was held in such esteem.

Unfortunately, one of the side effects of the Cold War was a stasis in our operating posture, training and thinking. There is no doubt that the operational squadrons were well trained, highly skilled and equally highly motivated, but the scenario in Europe and the expected employment of air power had not changed for many years. This ‘operational model’ was in turn reflected in the training delivered by the OCUs back in the UK, and I don’t recall the TWCU syllabus changing significantly during the three years I was there.

The RAF ground-attack force was committed to attack exclusively at low level. The primary weapons were the venerable 1,000-lb bomb (either free fall or parachute-retarded) and the BL755 cluster bomb. The operational squadrons would also practise delivery profiles for the JP233 runway denial weapon and, very occasionally, with the Paveway II laser-guided bomb, although the Tornado possessed no laser designation capability of its own.

To become a qualified weapons instructor was the aim of pretty well every pilot and navigator, being a recognition of one’s skill as an aviator and operator, and I was fortunate to be selected for the QWI course very early in my TWCU tour. At the time the course was run by the wonderfully talented Bob McAlpine. Bob was an unrelenting taskmaster and a great instructor, and I quickly gained an in-depth knowledge of all aspects of the weaponeer’s art. This ranged from study of the working of each weapon, to weapons delivery calculations (at that time, if you can believe it, we were still using logarithmic tables!) to cine film debriefing technique (the acme of the QWI’s art and, yes, it wasn’t a typo; the gunsight camera recorded on wet film which, once developed, was played on less-than-reliable projectors in blacked-out debriefing cubicles). There was endless practice on the bombing range, following which any error in speed, height or technique would be pounced upon mercilessly by Bob during the aforementioned cine debrief. At the end of four months of this ritual self-criticism and analysis, one emerged as a newly fledged QWI, armed with sharply honed weaponeering skills and a deep knowledge ready to eviscerate student crews for any transgression.

Although this training was, without doubt excellent, and a marvellous foundation for a future, operationally focused career, it all reflected the traditional old weapons and tactics of the Cold War. And not once during those four months did I ever fly with a live weapon. Like all front-line fast-jet crews at the time I spent endless hours on the academic bombing ranges dropping practice bombs, and it was not without some truth that the course was dubbed the ‘east coast range instructors’ course’.

All this changed in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism. With the threat from the Soviet bear much diminished, Britain cashed in, rather hastily some might say, on the ‘swords to ploughshares’ windfall. The ‘options for change’ and ‘defence costs study (front line first)’ reviews followed in relatively quick succession, resulting in a dramatic reduction in the Tornado force and a review of our Germany basing policy. In the midst of this, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, thus changing our operational focus and priorities.

Life on a training unit wasn’t all routine, though. Following a long, late-1980s summer teaching the tyros, we instructors were ready for a break. Four of us set up a weekend ranger (also known as an overseas training flight). The purpose was to take a couple of aircraft away to some far-flung field to gain experience in operating in a foreign environment and to overcome any difficulties that may arise without the engineering and spares support available at home. We mulled over the options and decided a weekend in Naples would be just the ticket. Unfortunately, the other pilot and both navigators were squadron leaders, and so, as the only flight lieutenant in this intrepid team, it was left to me to organise the plan, arrange the allowances, liaise with the squadron engineers, book the hotel and sort out the administrative trivia ahead of departure. None of which, to be honest, was particularly onerous, and certainly a small price to pay for some late-season sunshine beside the gorgeous Mediterranean.

A GR1 of the TWCU, bearing the markings of 45(R) Squadron, during its solo aerobatic display in the mid to late 1980s.

Departure day arrived and we jetted off nice and early – to maximise drinking time at the far end. A couple of hours later we were beginning our descent towards the beautiful Bay of Naples, with the city sprawling around the edge of the bay and Vesuvius clearly visible to the south. On the ground at Capodichino airport we parked the jets, performed the requisite refuelling and servicing and headed off to our city hotel in anticipation of a weekend of fun and relaxation in good company. Time dims the memory and I can recall little of the weekend per se, save for the excellent grilled branzino (sea bass) eaten at a seafront restaurant – and of course who could visit Naples without sampling a pizza? A trip across the bay to Capri to visit the Blue Grotto and Gracie Fields’s last resting place was partially completed; we made it to Capri easily enough but, as is so often the case on OTFs, any pretence of sightseeing got no further than the first bar/trattoria. Many glasses of birra, vino rosso and sambuca later it was Monday morning and time to crank up the jets and head home – naturally, having allowed the appropriate time between ‘bottle and throttle’. Our problems were just starting.

We arrived at our electric jets to discover that the battery on one of them (not mine) was flat. Those familiar with the Tornado will have a pretty good idea why this might have been (a diagnostic panel, which needed to be read after flight, was all too easily left ajar), but to spare my erstwhile flight commander’s blushes let’s gloss over any potential aircrew servicing oversights. Without a battery the crew couldn’t even open the canopy let alone entertain any thoughts of starting the engines. Not to despair, wasn’t this one of the reasons we went on OTFs, to use our skill, experience and ingenuity to tackle any difficulties that might arise? We put our heads together, carefully, as they were still quite sore. We considered starting my aircraft and then swapping my battery to the broken aircraft to start that up. However, this would have meant flying one aircraft with a dead, albeit slowly recharging, battery. Common sense and the potential ramifications of an in-flight electrical problem quickly ruled out that solution. Common sense, or lack of it, being somewhat the leitmotif of the ensuing escapade – as you will see as the tale unfolds.

Undaunted, we investigated the facilities on the airfield. Perhaps there was a battery-charging bay; after all this was a major civilian airport. But no joy. We remembered that the Italian military operated a squadron of Tornados at Gioia del Colle, an airfield near Bari, some 175 miles to the south east. The Italians were sympathetic but declined our invitation to drive for four hours across the peninsula to bring us a spare battery. I’m not sure what the Italian for ‘Bloody Brits’ is, but we got the message! Back in the UK, the squadron had been scoping the possibility of sending us a replacement battery. Unfortunately, as such items were classified as dangerous air cargo, none of the commercial carriers who flew from the UK to Naples would touch it with a barge pole. So no joy. By this time it was early afternoon and we were running low on ideas.

Suddenly – an epiphany. The RAF armament practice camp base, where crews would sharpen their weapon-delivery skills during a concentrated period, was at Decimomannu in Sardinia. Although late in the season, a quick check confirmed that there were still some engineers from 14 Squadron at Deci and, more importantly, they had a spare battery – deep joy. My navigator (let’s call him Dick) and I would fly across to Deci, swap the duff battery for a serviceable one, fly back to Naples, pop the new battery in the broken jet – and all would be well. With a quick flight plan submitted, we were soon on our way westward to Sardinia.

Turning the clock back a while, Dick and I had, on a couple of occasions, discussed the concept of a ‘reverse seat sortie’. On joining the RAF Dick had trained as a pilot and had got quite a way through the system, having even flown the Hunter, before he was suspended and subsequently retrained as a navigator. Now, having flown hundreds of hours in the back seat of a Tornado, Dick was easily one of the most experienced navigators in the force and, as his instructor role necessitated, he had a great understanding and knowledge of the front seat operation. Perhaps, given these circumstances, one can understand why he really fancied a sortie – just the one – in the front. For my part I was an instructor pilot and was used to flying in the back seat while teaching the young pilots converting to type. Trainer versions have a duplicate set of flying controls in the rear cockpit to permit instructor pilots to teach/monitor trainee pilots, but still retain full mission capability. Each front-line squadron has at least one trainer in which to carry out periodic qualification and currency sorties. However, as the dedicated conversion training unit, the TWCU had quite a few, and we had one of them with us in Naples.

Of course it is one thing to fly with a fully qualified pilot, albeit inexperienced on type, in the front seat, but would be quite another to fly a navigator there. That aside it was, quite obviously, against all rules and regulations. However, we were both highly experienced and skilled aviators and, above all, a long way from home; what could possibly go wrong? That was the theory, but of course there was never any realistic expectation of it happening – which, as it would turn out, was just as well. We set off happily across the Tyrrhenian Sea seated in our correct cockpits.

Without looking at a map of the Mediterranean one would be forgiven for thinking that Sardinia was relatively close to the mainland, But Deci is a good hour’s flight from Naples. It was, therefore, well into the afternoon before we landed there. True to their word, 14 Squadron’s engineers were waiting for us and, joy of joys, had the replacement battery to hand. When I say to hand, actually the battery was cocooned in a bespoke packaging case the size of a chest of drawers. As we climbed out of the jet and shook hands with our saviours the flight sergeant asked us where the duff battery was. “In the spent ammo bay”, I replied (this small compartment, accessed by a panel on the underside of the aircraft, is where used shell cases go when the aircraft’s 27mm Mauser cannons are fired; it provides pretty well the only storage space for a couple of small weekend bags or, in this case, the flat battery). I opened the panel and out popped – fell, if truth be told – the dead battery. A couple of minutes then passed as we revived the good flight sergeant from his dead faint. Concerned about our rather cavalier approach to engineering safety protocols, he was adamant the replacement battery must be flown back in its protective packaging – although quite obviously there was no way that we could fit the oversized transport chest into any nook or cranny in the Tornado. Following a short negotiation he relented and agreed to load the new battery back into the spent ammo bay, albeit with more packaging wrapped around it than you could shake a stick at and with the proviso that we only flew straight and level during our transit back to Naples. I cannot recall the flight sergeant’s name; however, a belated thanks to him for his flexibility.

Returning to our cunning plan, both Dick and I were known to some of the 14 Squadron ground crew, while all the others could easily tell the difference between one officer with pilot’s wings and the other with a navigator’s brevet. The ramifications of such a jape being rumbled still didn’t bear thinking about, reinforcing our sensible decision to continue in our correct roles. We may have been a bit daft but we certainly weren’t totally stupid!

A very quick start up ensued as the Italians were keen to close the airfield for the day, and we were soon on the way with our precious cargo. We climbed to 25,000 feet and set course for the hour or so flight back to Naples. As we headed eastwards a couple of things occurred. First, the long hours of trouble-shooting and the longer than expected flight to Deci caught up with us. The bright sunlight slipped away rapidly (what is it about Mediterranean sunsets?) and very soon we were night flying. No problem in itself but then, and of slightly more concern, the cloudless skies of our earlier transit started to fill with some of the most ominous-looking cumulonimbus thunderclouds.

As we neared the Italian mainland we were in thick, pitch-black cloud. Dick, looking ahead on the radar, muttered something along the lines of “Oh, that’s not good”. “Excellent” I said, “any chance of telling me exactly what’s not good?” “There’s a huge storm cell right on the nose,” replied Dick; “no snags, I’ll route us around it.” Unfortunately, Roma control had other ideas. Civilian traffic had priority and our ever more insistent requests for a heading change were denied. We plunged headlong into the maelstrom just as we started our descent to Naples. The Tornado is normally a stable platform, but in that storm we were flung around like a cork. The buffeting was so severe that Dick’s head was bounced against the inside of the canopy; so much for the flight sergeant’s plea for a smooth transit! Lightning was discharging in the cloud all around us; I turned the cockpit lights up fully and we waited for the inevitable strike. Some rescue mission this was turning out to be. As you might imagine it was at about this time that we commented on how fortunate we were each to be sitting in the correct seats.

Roma control passed us over to Naples approach; not surprisingly, we couldn’t make out a word the controller was saying in the midst of a huge electrical storm. Unable to communicate with air traffic control, in terminal airspace, in the middle of a lightning storm and wary of descending any further as we approached the mainland, the situation was not looking too rosy. But suddenly, as though we had just stepped through a curtain, we popped out of a solid wall of cloud over a beautifully tranquil Bay of Naples, a couple of miles from the airport and perfectly positioned to fit in downwind for a right-hand circuit to the westerly runway.

An immaculate, if I say so myself, landing followed, and as we rolled down the runway breathing slightly more easily we once again ran into the storm we had so recently escaped and which must have been moving eastwards at quite some speed. The rain was coming down like stair rods as we taxied back to the USN facility that was hosting us. The parking area consisted of a pierced steel planking hardstanding which was, at that moment, home to two aircraft – our sister Tornado and an F-14 Tomcat. The US sailor who was marshalling us in was, self evidently, most put out at having been called from his warm office to stand in the pouring rain to see in some Brits. Presumably accustomed to spotting aircraft on the crowded deck of an aircraft carrier, he eschewed the acres of parking space available and manoeuvred us (very) close to the F-14. Full nosewheel steering and hefty application of left brake finally brought us juddering to a halt with our wingtip about three feet from the F-14’s. Job done as far as he was concerned; and with no desire to get any wetter our sailor jumped into his truck and was gone as quickly as he had appeared.

The navigator of our second Tornado had hitched a ride out with the marshaller and was now hiding from the storm under our wing. We sat there for a couple of minutes with the engines running eyeing the tempest outside, but there was no way this storm was about to abate in a hurry. There was nothing else for it; I shut down the engines and opened the canopy, exposing us to the deluge. Of course our impatient sailor hadn’t thought to bring us any ladders, and so the pair of us made our way gingerly down the spine of the aircraft and, wary of slipping off to a certain broken ankle, lowered ourselves down carefully off the tailplane. As the two navs compared notes under the wing, yours truly, as both captain of the aircraft and, if you recall, the junior mate, scurried around putting the machine ‘to bed’ (closing the canopy, putting in the safety pins and ground locks, fitting the protective covers and so on) – and getting jolly wet in the process.

The severity of the storm meant that our sanctuary beneath the wing provided little real protection from the elements and so, as our marshaller had long since driven off in his truck, we were left with no choice but to sprint for the protection of the USN HQ building. Not far, say 100 metres, but running in full safety equipment, in particular the anti-G suit, is no easy or quick matter. Three abreast, we advanced at best speed across the PSP parking area. You’ll already have guessed what’s coming next – that’s right, a lightning strike! Not so close that we feared being struck but close enough (and loud enough) to the PSP to provoke a gravity-defying response of physical impossibility. All three of us, in mid sprint, managed to elevate ourselves in perfect unison several feet into the air. To anyone watching our progress on that dark and stormy night we must have appeared like an ungainly audition for River Dance.

In the protection of the HQ building, soaked to the skin but, despite the day’s challenges, otherwise unscathed, we were reunited with our other pilot. While we were flying to Sardinia he had been to the nearby NATO HQ where the UK had a small admin cell and, in an amazing feat of persuasion, had convinced the cashier on duty to give him two million lira for our subsistence that night on the promise that he would, of course, telephone him as soon as he was back in the UK to settle the matter. Good skills!

Reunited once more, all we now had to do was make our way back into Naples for the night. The ensuing taxi ride was probably scarier than our exploits in the air that day. Those of you who have ever driven in southern Europe, and particularly in a Naples rush hour, will know what I mean. We arrived at our hotel having driven the final fifty metres on the pavement, scattering the rightful occupants of that space into doorways and the gutter. We tipped the driver handsomely for the ‘entertainment’ and checked into the hotel. We stood in reception, three of us steaming gently following our earlier soaking. “Anyone fancy a drink?” said Dick. After the trials and tribulations of a long, long day, what followed was undoubtedly the best gin and tonic ever.

The next morning, order had been restored and the Mediterranean was back to normal. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the autumn sun was wonderfully warm on our still-damp backs. At the airport we fitted the new battery (which was thankfully undamaged despite the buffeting it must have taken during our flight through the storm) to the broken jet, started up and flew home without a glitch. We arrived at Honington, albeit a day later than planned, feeling pretty pleased with ourselves and with our ingenuity in sorting out our myriad problems. The boss, however, had a different take on matters. Dick was hauled into his office and dragged over the coals. The remaining three of us, perhaps fearful of also being invited in for an ‘interview without coffee’ never enquired of Dick what was said during his reprimand, and he was too much of a gentleman to discuss it; if only the boss had known the full story! Dick and I never mentioned, at least in public, our cunning plan; we both knew how lucky we had been. If we’d pursued the silly notion of swapping seats, our tussle with the thunderstorm would have been decidedly more exciting, while one can only guess at the disciplinary and career ramifications that would have come our way if knowledge of the deed had reached back home – as it inevitably would have done.

Over twenty-five years have passed since these events and Dick and I are now retired, both of us having made it to air commodore – that rank, I trust, being a reflection of our more usual standards of airmanship and professionalism. Sometimes, as I sit in ‘pipe and slippers’ comfort and the weather outside is stormy, I reflect on whether either of us would have achieved such lofty rank if we had been cavalier enough to see through our jolly jape. As L.P.Hartley said in his novel The Go-Between, “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” Indeed it is – and they do.

Rolling the clock forward I returned to XV(R) Squadron, based at RAF Lossiemouth, to a very different training world. I joined the new number one course for my refresher training before taking command of the squadron. Why number one? Well the TTTE experiment had run its course and UK training was being reset. The RAF was about to take delivery of the GR4 version of the Tornado, a national upgrade (and a tremendous increase in the jet’s navigational and weapons capabilities) not shared by Germany and Italy. The time had come to part; the split was amicable, with the Germans exporting all their training to Holloman AFB in the US and the Italians doing their own thing in Italy. While those of us who had passed through the TTTE had fond memories of our time at Cottesmore, no one lamented its passing; it was time to move on. For the UK it enabled a rewrite of the training syllabus to maximise the full training value of each hour, and to reflect the Tornado’s new operational commitments and weaponry.

The shift in emphasis and the move to a wholly national OCU was perfect. The staff were all immensely experienced, with operational background ranging from Desert Storm onwards. What more could I ask for as the first boss of the new set up? In theory nothing, but of course this was a change to a government organisation. The new squadron was formed around the existing TWCU and its experienced weapons staff; however, of the twenty-two pilot instructors only three QFIs/IPs were qualified to teach student pilots the basics of how to fly the aircraft. Additionally, of the twenty-eight or so aircraft on the line, about half were ex-Cottesmore jets. These were block one, batch one models and were pretty much good only for initial conversion training. They had no pylons, so could not carry fuel tanks or weapons; they had no guns and an obsolete EW fit. You get the picture.

The RAF quickly realised its error and, in quick time, we addressed or worked around the limitations. By the time I left some three years later, XV Squadron was in transition to being fully GR4 equipped and the students were leaving for their operational squadrons already well on their way to becoming combat ready. The difference from my previous experience ten years earlier was profound. While the students were still taught the basics of weapon delivery with practice bombs, they were now also prepared for the weapons they would be employing soon after their arrival on the front line – and in a much wider range of delivery profiles. The ongoing operational imperative made it necessary for students to graduate from the conversion unit at a higher standard of training and readiness, and the experience of crews returning to XV Squadron as instructors helped reduce the gulf that previously existed between the training unit and the operational squadrons.

My two tours on the TWCU/XV Squadron were immensely enjoyable and rewarding. The former was probably the most enjoyable of my career – lots of varied flying, endless weaponry, a QWI course, and the satisfaction of helping countless young pilots and navigators at the start of their careers. I’d also managed a couple of years as the aerobatic display pilot, which brought the fascinating challenge of displaying a variable wing-sweep aircraft. The latter tour, at Lossiemouth, added some of the best low-level flying in the world. Above all, though, one’s flying command tour is always something special.

I began this piece by recalling a party to celebrate the Tornado’s thirty years of service (and counting); since I penned those first lines I have attended a dinner to celebrate XV(R) Squadron’s centenary. It was good to see the unit in such fine spirits under the fine leadership of Jon Nixon, still delivering new life blood to the front line. That role will gradually wither on the vine over the next couple of years as the Tornado heads towards retirement in 2018/9. I’m sure there’ll be a final Tornado party at that time when, once again, we will all look back at our experiences in the Tornado training system. I for one will always have fond memories.