Tornado fighters for Knockhill

A pair of Tornado F3 fighter jets will perform a spectacular low level fly past for the crowds at Knockhill’s Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship rounds on Sunday 3 September, courtesy of Team Halfords and partner Clydesdale Bank that is sponsoring the race day.

With the BTCC cars lined up on the grid for the start of race one at Knockhill, the two Tornados, from nearby RAF Leuchars, will fly past at 250 feet before dramatically climbing into the skies at more than 500mph.

Both jets’ crews will no doubt be wishing series leader Matt Neal and his Team Halfords team-mates, Scotland’s Gordon Shedden and Gareth Howell good luck for their three BTCC races that day.

On the Friday before Knockhill’s big BTCC race weekend, Shedden will enjoy the flying lesson of a lifetime when he is taken up in one of the Tornados. That is after he and the F3 have given reigning BTCC champion Neal, in his Honda Integra, a race down the RAF Leuchars runway.

Richard Tait-Harris, the marketing manager for Team Dynamics which runs Team Halfords’ BTCC programme, says: “We’ve enjoyed a long and successful association with the Royal Air Force and this is the pinnacle of what can be achieved in terms of not just a PR stunt with Gordon on the Friday but also entertaining the public at Knockhill on the Sunday.

“Not only is Gordon going to race the Tornado F3 at RAF Leuchars against Matt in his Team Halfords Honda, but he’s going to have a whole load of fun as he’ll then be flying off into the distance at more than 500mph for an hour. And he’ll know just what the guys in the Tornados are experiencing when they fly over Knockhill because part of his ride will also include a vertical climb.

“We’re really looking forward to welcoming RAF Leuchars’ pilots to Knockhill on the Sunday. It will be a fantastic event for the crowds.”

Knockhill will mark a rare chance to see the F3 – capable of 1000mph and travelling from Edinburgh to London in under 25 minutes – in action before it is replaced by Typhoon, the new breed of ultra-manoeuvrable fighter aircraft.

RAF Leuchars, in Fife, is home to 56 Squadron, the largest of four UK ‘air defence’ fighter squadrons, that this year celebrates its 90th anniversary and which has a long and distinguished history dating back to Ypres in WW1, Dunkirk, Battle of Britain and Normandy in WW2. More recently, it was involved in the 1982 Falkland Islands conflict and the 2003 Gulf War.