Tornado: In the Eye of the Storm

by John Nichol

As the 1970s progressed, the Tornado began to take shape. With all three nations in harmony, the development site outside Munich grew to a workforce of almost 200 people. Three decades on from the Second World War, there had been a few stony silences in the office shared by a veteran German Luftwaffe colonel and a similarly aged RAF squadron leader.13 Into this somewhat frosty atmosphere was thrown the snippet of information that both had been fighter pilots, one in Messerschmitts, the other Spitfires. Conversation became a touch more animated when it was discovered that each had fought in the same campaign over northern Europe in the latter stages of the conflict. Logbooks were produced, dates aligned and in no time at all the whirling, twisting and twirling hand gestures favoured by fighter pilots revealed that they had indeed shared the same airspace, though fortunately neither had been on the receiving end of the other’s bullets. As one onlooker dryly observed, they were clearly both lousy shots.