II (AC) Squadron - Administration
The complicated nature of the Tornado, with comprehensive avionics installation with electronics bays packed with weapons control and management systems requires an engineer to be schooled, tested and constantly up to date on many varied procedures.

Trades consist of Airframe, Propulsion, Weapons, Electrician and Avionics although traditionally they are still referred to as 'Riggers', 'Sooties', 'Plumbers', 'Leckies' and 'Fairies'. To the aircrew they are known as 'The Gingers' from the cockney rhyming slang 'Ginger Beer's' or Engineers!

As opposed to airliners, where flights are long and lumbering, a Tornado sortie can be anything from thirty minutes to a transatlantic flight with mid-air refueling. Sorties are demanding, including operational maneuvers, where performance limits can be reached easily. The necessary before and after flight checks are carried out by the engineers to maintain the aircraft's serviceability throughout its mission whilst routine servicing is based on calendar and flying hour schedules.

Two shifts, each of around seventy engineers, cover the day and night flying programs alternating weekly in a pattern which is normally continued throughout the working year including the many detachments.