JAGUARGR.1
Close-up of a TIALD Designator pod on the centreline pylon of a No 54 Squadron Jaguar GR.3A at RAF Leuchars in April 2004. A Rangeless Aircraft Instrumentation Debriefing System (RAIDS) pod can be seen on the overwing launch rail and a PHIMAT Countermeasures Dispenser on the outer wing pylon.
designed blue dominated RAF Lossiemouth Tartan and again in 2000 to a yellow edged black box when the unit moved south to RAF Coltishall. RAFG based aircraft carried bi-lingual safety and servicing stencilling while UK based aircraft had these in English only.
Briefly the first Jaguar units used
the last three digits of the serial as an aircraft code in black on the nose undercarriage door when in the initial Light Aircraft Grey under surface colour scheme, or white on other colours. As more units formed this changed, in theory, as each unit had a unique identifying prefix letter with individual aircraft in it being given an individual suffix letter. Usually large and coloured black, with white edges on the tail, repeated on the nose undercarriage door in white on Dark Sea Grey/dark Green undersides or black on Light Aircraft Grey undersides, or small and black in all locations on overall ‘grey’ aircraft. In practice this was far from universal as some units did not use the prefix until the grey colour scheme was adopted, some used different colours at different times for a single code letter, some used a single colour nose undercarriage door either until wraparound camouflage or even the grey scheme was introduced.
Others went a little further as a few of the many anomalies will
illustrate. No II (AC) Squadron used a single letter within their triangular squadron marking on both tail and nose undercarriage door until 1980 when this changed to a numerical two digit system. No 41 Squadron at times used red, outlined in white, for tail and nose door letters. No 54 Squadron used yellow nose door letters during their lengthy blue nose undercarriage door period. 226 OCU used the larger style black/white identifiers but with a numerical double digit code for single-seaters until adopting the grey colour scheme and retained the same size and style of codes, but single letters starting with 'A' only eventually changing to small black 'P' prefixed two letter codes in all three locations when re-locating to Coltishall.
The photo images Sadly no RAFG Jaguars ever
crossed my path and the majority of those in Grey/Green camouflage did so before buying my first SLR Camera. All the images printed here were taken by myself on visits to the then three RAF airbases in Scotland at Leuchars, Kinloss and Lossiemouth, during exercises, airshows or merely over the fence in passing. Those taken prior to my switching to digital in 2004 have been scanned from prints.
Starboard airbrake and main undercarriage doors on an ARTF Desert Sand re-painted Jaguar GR.1, XZ119, at the National Museum of Flight. The inside face of the airbrake and the rear area of the bay are painted the external camouflage colour as was normal in all colour schemes but the
remaining areas of both bays are in primer. The circular projection within the airbrake bay is the pressure refuelling point (the Microturbo APU is in the port bay). The forward doors of the main bay are usually only open on the ground for servicing.
Port main undercarriage and airbrake bays on Jaguar GR.1 XZ119 at the National Museum of Flight, with the forward doors on the undercarriage bay open in their servicing position – they are normally closed on the ground. The TIALD is shown on the transport dolly in the foreground which might not be standard and bears a striking resemblance to the unit for Firestreak/Red Top AAMs.
Although its wing shape has been changed for Active Control Technology (ACT) trials and the aircraft has been given a non-standard RAE 'Raspberry Ripple' colour scheme, the extended AAR
probe on Jaguar GR.1 XX765 now displayed at the RAF Museum Cosford is the same unit as carried on every single-seat Jaguar.
No 41 Squadron Jaguar GR.3A XZ357/FK taxiis out for a sortie during a Combined Qualified Weapons Instructors Course (CQWIC) at RAF Leuchars in June 2004, with grey/green
droptanks, a PHIMAT pod on the outer wing pylon and a Rangeless Aircraft Instrumentation Debriefing System (RAIDS) pod above.
FEBRUARY 2015 • VOLUME 36 • ISSUE 12
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