The Panavia Tornado at Low Level

The small group of enthusiasts and photographers who had braved the winter weather and gathered on the slopes of the Lake District¿s iconic valleys on Wednesday, 9 January 2019, were witnesses to the end of an era. The RAF Tornado GR.4 that raced past them, in some cases at a lower altitude than the onlookers, made the last ever low-level flight by this aircraft in the United Kingdom Low Flying System. Never again would the ¿Mighty Fin¿, an aircraft that had been a familiar sight among the valleys of the UK for around forty years, provide such a spectacle. First flown in August 1974, the Tornado arguably become of the RAF¿s most important aircraft of the Cold War. Indeed, the Tornado was the mainstay of RAF strike aircraft, from its early days as a nuclear capable low-level interdiction strike fighter (the GR.1 in RAF service), through to its retirement as a more versatile medium to high-level strike fighter, the GR.4\. Along with the shorter-lived Air Defence Variant, the F.2/F.3, the