• Happy Birthday Tornado - 50th Anniversary of the Tornado 1st Flight in 2024

    2024 is a very special year for Panavia and for the Tornado Aircraft: 50 years ago, on 14th August 1974, the first Tornado prototype with its iconic red-white colour scheme took off from Manching, Germany.

  • PANAVIA managing tornado

    Over 950 Aircraft have been delivered to the Air Forces of Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 

  • Germany

    The German modernisation programmes will allow the Luftwaffe to maintain its Tornado fleet in service until beyond 2030…

  • Italy

    The Italian upgrade programme was divided into three phases and, together with ongoing capability enhancements will enable the entire Italian Tornado fleet to maintain its potential until beyond 2025…

  • United Kingdom

    The United Kingdom Mid Life Update Programme permitted the British Tornado GR.4 to remain in service until 2019…

  • Saudi Arabia

    The Royal Saudi Air Force has put its operational fleet through an upgrade programme, defined as the Tornado Sustainment Programme (TSP) and is embarking on a further range of enhancements…

  • Panavia Sustainment Programme

    The Panavia Sustainment Programme ensures that a stable logistical and engineering support can be delivered to all Tornado customers until the last out of service date, by providing and maintaining Panavia’s/ PPC’s capabilities and capacities within the programme industry.

The Successful European Military / Industrial Programme

In terms of the number of aircraft built and delivered, Tornado remains one of Europe´s largest military aircraft co-operation programmes

Contemporary air power needs to be flexible, hard hitting, rapid reaction and readily available.

The Panavia Tornado weapon system combines in one airframe a full deterrent capability, representing the most effective aircraft of its class today.

Tornado was designed and produced by the aircraft industries of three nations, in one of the largest, most challenging and most successful multi-national aircraft programmes ever conceived.

‘’The success of the Tornado programme was a result of the holistic view taken from the start, recognizing the customer’s needs would change over the life of the programme and that discipline, good engineering and project management were crucial’’

From ‘’Creating Systems that Work’’ Study by the Royal Academy of Engineering, London 2007

Tornado represents an invaluable opportunity to be at the forefront of new technologies

News + Press Releases

On the occasion of the Tornado 50 years 1st Flight Anniversary the GE Air Force has realised (with the support…

2024 is a very special year for Panavia and for the Tornado Aircraft: 50 years ago, on 14th August 1974, the…

Extended service life for the German Tornado.

The first overhauled machine took off with new structural…