THE arrival of the Tornado heralded a wind of change in the shadow of the Cold War and its departure has left communities near RAF Leeming contemplating a quieter future with mixed feelings.

Only three days after the RAF celebrated its 90th birthday, the last of three Tornado fighter squadrons on the base has been disbanded as the aircraft enters the twilight of its front line career.

Former members of 25 Squadron and their families were joined by senior figures from the service last Friday for a parade and a flypast, involving six aircraft, marking the end of Tornado operations from Leeming after 20 years.

Leeming was upgraded from a training station into a Nato fighter base between 1984 and 1988 to plug a 225-mile gap in Britain's east coast air defences. The first Tornado user to arrive was 11 Squadron, which moved out two years ago, closely followed in 1989 by 23 Squadron, disbanded only five years later under a defence review, and 25 Squadron.

The station is now developing a new role as the headquarters of 90 Signals Unit, a major communications hub that will eventually employ about 900 personnel. It will remain the home of the Hawk jets of 100 Squadron, 34 Squadron RAF Regiment and the Northumbrian Universities Air Squadron and will continue to host visiting aircraft and helicopters.

Formed in 1915 as part of the Royal Flying Corps, 25 Squadron names its main claim to fame during the First World War as the shooting down of the German air ace Max Immelmann. After serving throughout the Second World War, it entered the jet age.

Last summer the squadron made headlines by scrambling Tornados to intercept Russian aircraft intruding on British air space for the first time in many years, reviving memories of the Cold War in the 1970s.

A Tornado wearing a special colour scheme commemorating the squadron's 93 years was the backdrop for the disbandment parade reviewed by Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy, Chief of the Air Staff, with music by the Band of the RAF College at Cranwell, Lincolnshire.

Wing Cdr John Prescott, who has led the squadron since 2005, said: "Today will be particularly poignant for many. Aircrew will be saying goodbye to the jet that has taken them through years of service and some will even be ending their flying careers.

"Most of the ground crew have been with the squadron for several years and will now be posted from the area they have grown to love. It will potentially be very emotional."

The squadron standard was presented to Flt Lt Al Footit for safekeeping by Flt Lt Stefan Brown. It was then ceremonially borne away in a slow march, to the strains of Auld Lang Syne, to be laid up on Sunday at St Clement Dane's, the RAF church in London.

After the Second World War, Leeming was mainly a fighter base until 1961, when it began a 23-year period as a training school with Jet Provost aircraft.

Although the move pumped millions of pounds into the local economy, its reversion to a fighter role with the powerful new Tornado F3 proved highly controversial, concerns being centred mainly on noise, including that generated by an aerobatic display aircraft.

About 200 people attended a heated public meeting called at Bedale by the Ministry of Defence in 1984 to explain the plans, after which environmental health officers from Hambleton District Council conducted noise tests with a visiting aircraft.

In addition to the cost of the airfield redevelopment, which included hardened aircraft shelters, the MoD spent millions more on buying blighted properties and installing secondary double glazing to protect the occupants of other houses in villages most affected by Tornado flying patterns.

Over the past 20 years, the three squadrons at Leeming have been deployed to some of the world's hottest troublespots including the Gulf and Bosnia, where Tornados helped to police the air exclusion zone during the civil war.

John Kettlewell, chairman of Exelby, Leeming and Newton Parish Council, said: "Some residents will be pleased at the fact that noise levels will be lower, but we also have a lot to thank the RAF for with the trade it has brought into the area.

"For more than five years, the council has had few if any complaints. This is one of those things that has come and gone and now let's look to the future."

John Wright, landlord of the Willow Tree Inn at Leeming, a haunt of wartime RAF and Canadian bomber crews from the base, said: "I have enjoyed being out there watching the Tornados when I can. The noise has not bothered me. I will miss them."