RAF Jaguars Alive And Well

In my previous life as an instructor trainer at the Instructional Flight at cranwell I have spent many hours taxying these Jaguars during the EngO scenario based training exercise The seats are disarmed and there is no bar across the throttle quadrant. Reheat and PTR are disabled.

If they are strapped in possibly, as the seats are a zero zero capability and it’s not a lot to teach, though there may be issues with cartridge lives etc so they are possibly disarmed, they are there BTW to teach engineering officers who the RAF works, they load them up, see them off, quick taxy, see them in, rearm refuel etc

Oddly enough the airforces of the world were a bit lax about seats when I was still in, a USA base were moving a gate guardian that had sat on the gate for over 10 years indoors to refurb it and as the guy climbed into the cockpit the seat went off killing him… after that there was a worldwide flurry of all airforces to check the smouldering piles of corrosion on their gates and several were found also to still contain live seats….

Excuse me if this is a silly question, but would these taxi runs be done with Live ejection seats ?

Get the Top Gear team in them for a race around the peri track!!!!

I so hope that one day one of those makes it into preservation in Brunty!

Lovely stuff! Seen them parked there but never timed it right to see them on the prowl. Yet…

Bet our man in Auz was just looking at the canopy bungees….. 🙂

They are such lovely bungees! I was offered some a little while ago but at 250 pounds each I decided I could do without them for a little longer.

Paul

One of my favourite combat jets.

SHARS are a bit different you can have one of those over on it’s back, A Jag however requires the use of the curvature of the earth to get airborne, notice the Huds aren’t on either, so none or little of the avionics is in use / connected…. ahh remember the days, aeros in one of those puppies, all be it a bit slower than the average fast jet, still we did go faster than a speeding bullet or even the rifle crack…………. :D;)

Bet our man in Auz was just looking at the canopy bungees….. 🙂

Id imagine that it would be similar to the live SHARS the navy had? IIRC they had had a bar welded accross the throttle to prevent any full power being used.

I dont think the RAF would be so lucky if an incident akin to XM135 happened again 😉

I think they should be allowd to give them a high power runup down the runway for sure!!

Great Vid. I don’t think I could resist the temptation to open the throttle just a smidge more though:D