US-based pilot and billionaire Jared Isaacman, the founder of Draken International, has announced that he has procured an ex-Royal Air Force Tornado F.2A interceptor.
Photo: Jared Isaacman via X (Twitter)
Describing it as his “next aviation project”, Isaacman posted images of his newly-acquired Tornado on social media, stating: “I imagine it will take a year but she will fly again.”
He later added: “The team will get her flying again and we will honor the heritage with a historic RAF paint scheme.“
Currently, there are no flying Tornado F.2s in an airworthy condition. This Tornado variant first flew in 1979 and was a swing-wing interceptor fighter. It was used by the Royal Air Force, Royal Saudi Air Force and the Italian Air Force until the early 2010s – but this aircraft is seemingly ex-Royal Air Force, as only the British used the “F.2” designation. The War Zone identified former QinetiQ flight test platform and chase plane ZD902 as the most likely identify of Isaacman’s jet.
The Tornado will join Isaacman’s already-impressive private air force, which includes L-39C Albatrosses, Alpha Jet As and North America’s only airworthy civilian-operated MiG-29UB. The fleet is used for the Polaris Dawn astronaut training programme and also performed briefly at airshows under the name “Ghost Squadron”, but the team has been inactive since a mid-air collision during only their second full airshow appearance earlier this year. Nobody was hurt in the crash.