The 40th anniversary of the first flight of the Panavia MRCA was marked at Manching airfield near lngolstadt, southern Germany on September 3, when Luftwaffe Tornado IDS, 4461, was flown wearing a red and white scheme similar to that seen on the first prototype P.01 D-9541, when it made its maiden flight from Manching on August 14,1974. Unfortunately, the aircraft could not be painted with the original prototype's tri-national roundel, which P.01 wore on the starboard side of the fuselage, or the British and Italian roundels seen on the wings. The original serial of P.01, D-9541, was also absent from the fin, but the representative scheme was a spectacular reminder of just how 'right' this long-lived type looked when it first appeared, four decades ago.
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