panavia tornado f3

Last crawled date: 1 year, 10 months ago

the tornado f3 made its maiden flight on 20 november 1985.enhancements over the f2 included rb.199 mk 104 engines, which were optimised for high-altitude use with longer afterburner nozzles, the capacity to carry four underwing sidewinder missiles rather than two, and automatic wing sweep control. the f3's primary armament when it entered into service was the short-range sidewinder and the medium-range skyflash missiles, a british design based on the american aim-7 sparrow. the f.3 (originally f.mk3) became operational in 1989, with an automatic maneuver device system incorporated, enabling the flight control computer to automatically adjust the sweeping the wing to obtain the optimum flight characteristics. this was similar in concept to the automatic sweeping wing (asw) capability of f-14, a capability that greatly enhanced maneuverability but did not exist on any previous tornado ids and adv models.