RAF Jaguar GR3's

They were dark natural metal. New aircraft, or those that had recently undergone third-line maintenance, had a translucent dark red protective coating. This coating is no doubt what gives the impression of rusted metal. The coating would wear off fairly rapidly once the aircraft was returned to service.

So, that question was; would it be possible for a Jaguar of any mark number to carry and use the sidewinder type missiles both above and below the wing at the same time? Just a theoretical question as I have no idea of why they would want to load such an arrangement.

Thanks. cheers all. Jim.

It certainly wouldn't be possible for RAF Jaguars to *fire* Sidewinders from the underwing pylons as those pylons didn't have the necessary circuitry.

Even if the necessary circuitry was in place, there would be little point in putting AAMs under the wings as that would just take up a weapons station that is sorely needed for something else. The inboard wing pylons invariably carried fuel tanks - very necessary indeed. The outboard pylons were originally used to carry weapons but when the Jaguar finally went to war they were used instead for Phimat chaff pods and ECM pods. The weapons were carried on the centreline pylon.

Carriage of underwing AAMs would have led to the aircraft operating without ECM support, which was not a good idea. In fact, I cannot remember *ever* seeing any pictures of Jaguars of any mark carrying AAMs under the wings.

Thanks, Enzo. That explains so many photos....

Don H.

Could the wing-top pylons carry anything other than Sidewinders? On the Lightning you could mount ferry tanks, rocket pods, rocket pod/drop tank combos, or even bombs... although hoisting the bombs into position on top of the wings must have been a real pain in the rear.

Pat

I went digging around in my "Modern Air Combat" book, and was surprised to see the size of things that could be carried on the outer wing pylon

- up to Harpoon missiles and Exocets.

Pat

MATRA Magic... ;-)

I don't believe that the overwing hardpoints were ever used operationally for anything moe than ferry tanks. There were a few photographs of expert Lightning with strange weapons fits - I'm currently looking at a picture of a Kuwaiti Mk53 on show at te Paris Air Show with underwing 2 in rocket pods and overwing combined rocket/fuel pods, but the caption says that the overwing pods were never used. One has to wonder about the mindset of the person who designed that pod. I have loaded SNEB pods (the RAF equivalent of the 2 in rocket pod) and can vouch for the huge flame that is produced by a single rocket. I certainly wouldn't want such a flame impinging on a fuel tank!!!

The Lightning never carried an air-to-ground targeting system, even though the Mk6 version was marketed as a ground-attack machine and the Saudis used it in that role. The delivery of bombs was no more accurate than it would have been from a second world war fighter bomber - in fact given the approach speed of the Lightning it was probably less so. What was quite accurate was the use of 2 in rockets, either from an underwing pod or the forward weapons bay. These rockets could be aimed through the gunsight in a shallow dive and were very effective when used in action. In 1969 there was a border dispute between Saudi Arabia and South Yemen. RSAF Lightnings attacked and destroyed the Yemeni invasion force and halted the invasion with no ground engagement. This was the only combat use of the Lightning, although the RAF came close to engaging Turkish forces during August 1974. As Turkish forces approached the Sovereign Base Area at Dekheila, the British army at Dekheila prepared to defend the base. Lightnings from Akrotiri made successive low-level supersonic passes over the Turkish troops, deterring them from advancing further and preventing a military engagement between British and Turkish forces.

The French used them on Mirage III's also the designation was the Matra JL-100; each housed 18 SNEB 68 mm rockets and a 50 gallons of fuel. The Airfix 1/72 scale Mirage III kit was equipped with them. There's a good history page on the Lightning here that discusses them:

Aeromodeller Annual once published a picture of a BAC model of a swing-wing "Lightning" with much larger side-by-side engines (possibly Olympus) but with the same annular air intake and a suggestion it was close to the then top secret TSR2 project!

(kim)

I could see putting the swing wings on it, but moving the engines into a side-by-side layout would have been a mighty big redesign. In the top view of the swing-wing Lightning, with the wings out there's a crude resemblance to the A-6 Intruder. I once remarked to a private pilot from Britain that I thought the Lightning was ugly...he almost took a swing at me. :-) The TSR2 was a very attractive aircraft indeed, although I don't know how successful export sales would have been as a Canberra replacement...it was far more capable than a Canberra, but also far more expensive, and probably had pretty high maintenance requirements as well. A lot of smaller air forces probably didn't need a aircraft that was quite that capable. It seems to be largely biased for the nuclear strike mission, and if you don't have nuclear weapons....

Pat

Pat admitted:

I think it's a very simple design. A double bottom tube with slab wings and tail. Too bad they forgot to include space for the fuel. Kind of cuts down on its usefulness. Seriously, I've always liked them. One of my earliest Airfix kits was a Lightning. I'd first seen it in a French aviation magazine that the neighbourlady had. WWII warbride, ya know.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

In that respect it resembled the Su-7; it looks like a testbed that got converted into a fighter rather than used as a stepping stone to a better operational design. Having the landing gear take up so much of the lower wing area was a bad move as far as putting stores pylons on it.

To me, it always looked like a flying steam locomotive.

I had that kit - it wasn't bad by the standard of the time, which wasn't saying much. The Eldon "Match Kit" one was interesting in that it was of a earlier variant with the rounded vertical fin-top. I always liked the plane because it _was_ ugly. Let's face it; the Phantom II wasn't going to win any beauty contests either. ;-)

Pat

Be careful or you'll upset Enzo!

Now you've *really* upset Enzo! :o)

(kim)

LOL But Pat has a point. The Lightning was also *built* like a flying steam loco!

Trap your fingers when closing the panels of most aircraft and you'll end up with bruised fingers. Do it with a Lightning and the fingers will end up broken - if you're lucky!

LOL again.

That's pretty standard for British fighters. The Lightning was designed as a point-defence interceptor and followed the tradition of British fighters having little endurance. The Spitfire was always hampered by short range, as were the very early versions of the Hunter. I believe that more Hunters and Lightnings were lost because they simply ran out of fuel than for any other reason.

That would make it the aerial equivalent of one of these:

Which is odd, because point defense is the one thing that Thunderbird and Bloodhound missiles could probably do better that manned fighters. Britain has the advantage of being small enough that you could realistically put a SAM umbrella over every inch of it, unlike the U.S. or Russia. An aircraft with lower performance but longer range would have made sense as a system that could patrol out to sea around Britain and destroy some incoming enemy bombers before they reached SAM range. Of course ballistic missile would make both the SAMs and Lightnings ineffective. The Soviets were also playing around with long range supersonic cruise missiles that would have posed a severe challenge for fighters or SAMs to intercept; the Tu-123 reconnaissance drone was a outgrowth of a missile program:

Pat

One wonders where the fuel for a twin Olympus engined Lightning would have gone? The wing root is ruled out as that would have contained the mechanism for the variable geometry. I suppose they could have replaced the radar housing with enough fuel to last about three seconds!

(kim)