FROM THE ENGINEERS DESK September 8th 1968 – First flight of the SEPECAT Jaguar In 1957, British Defence Minster Duncan Sandys published a white paper that stated the day of the manned combat aircraft was over, and the future belonged to guided missiles. In the wake of the Sandystorm, many promising British aircraft development projects were cancelled. Sandys had greatly overestimated the capability of the guided missiles available at the time. Furthermore, at that time there was an obvious need to streamline and rationalize the British military aviation industry. Unfortunately, the result was less of a soft landing than a crash that left wreckage strewn all over the landscape. Some projects did manage to survive the Sandystorm. One of these proposals emerged in 1962 as Air Staff Target 362 (AST.362), which specified an advanced jet trainer to replace the Folland Gnat T.1 and the Hawker Hunter T.7. The trainer was also to serve as a light tactical strike aircraft. The British Aircraft Corporation (BAC, later the core of the modern British Aerospace / BAE Systems organization) came up with a design for the requirement designated the P.45, featuring twin afterburning Rolls-Royce RB.172 engines, then in design, and a top speed of Mach 1.7. The French government was also casting about for a new trainer with secondary strike capabilities, which emerged in parallel with AST.362 as a requirement for the Ecole de Combat et Appui Tactique (ECAT). The ECAT was to replace the Fouga Magister and Lockheed T-33 in the training role for the French Armee de lAir (AdA), and the Dassault Super Mystere B.2, Republic F-84F, and North American F-100 in the attack role. These two parallel requirements led to discussions between the two nations for a collaboration on a single aircraft to meet the requirements of both, with a provisional joint specification released in March 1964, followed by a refined specification in October 1964. There was uncertainty on both sides over the relative priorities of trainer versus strike requirements, and so discussions led the two sides to propose two collaborations, one based on the ECAT that would serve as a trainer for the RAF (and possibly the Royal Navy) and as a trainer / light strike aircraft for the ADA; and a more formidable dedicated strike fighter with swing wings for both the RAF and the AdA, designated the Anglo-French Variable Geometry (AFVG) aircraft. A decision to proceed on these two collaborative efforts was formalized in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed on 17 May 1965. As far as the trainer / light attack aircraft went, the initial agreement envisioned that the RAF would obtain 150 advanced trainer variants, while the AdA would obtain 75 trainer variants and 75 light attack variants. The name Jaguar was announced for the new aircraft in June 1965. The British trainer was designated Jaguar B (Biplace), while the French trainer was designated Jaguar E (Ecole) and the French light attack aircraft was designated Jaguar A (Appui). In May 1966, Breguet Aviation of France and British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) formed a joint company to build the new aircraft. The collaboration was named Societe Europeanne de Production de lAvion Ecole de Combat et Appui Tactique, blessedly abbreviated as SEPECAT. The AFVG was to be built by a collaboration between Dassault and BAC. The baseline for the Jaguar was the Breguet Br.121, an unflown design for a light strike aircraft. The engine for the Jaguar was also to be built by an Anglo-French consortium. Rolls-Royce of the UK would merge their RB.172 engine design — which the French had selected for the Br.121 — with that of the T-260 Turbolet produced by Turbomeca of France, resulting in an afterburning turbofan designated the RT-172 Adour. However, the Br.121 design defined a machine of modest capability, with a combat load of only 590 kilograms (1,300 pounds) and a limited combat radius. The British wanted something more formidable and pushed the project in that direction, with BAC changing the design to a bigger and more powerful aircraft. The RAF wanted to have more options in case other branches of aircraft development ran into dead ends. The French felt the changes in definition would lead to delays in delivery and they would be proven right, but they were also tempted by the revised machines improved capability and went along with the British. Whatever the reasons for the British push for a more capable combat aircraft, the change in direction would prove justified when the French killed off the AFVG in June 1967, citing lack of funds. The British were thoroughly annoyed when they found out that the funding shortfall was due to the fact that the French government had transferred the money to another Dassault program, the Mirage G, which was very much along the lines of the AFVG but was purely French. The Mirage G would eventually be axed as well. On 9 January 1968 the British and French governments signed a second MOU on the Jaguar, with both countries committing to the purchase of 200 aircraft each. The British would obtain 110 Jaguar B trainers and 90 single-seat Jaguar S (Strike) strike fighters. The AdA would still obtain 75 Jaguar Es and 75 Jaguar As, but the French naval air arm, the Aeronavale, would obtain 10 Jaguar Es and 40 examples of a carrier-capable Jaguar single-seat strike variant, the Jaguar M (Marine). The quantities were tweaked again in January 1970, with the British turning almost 180 degrees from their original position by ordering 165 Jaguar S strike fighters and only 35 Jaguar B trainers. Two prototypes were built for each of the four variants, giving a total of eight, with five of the prototypes built in France and three in the UK. A single prototype of the Jaguar M carrier-based strike variant for the Aeronavale — with a longer nosewheel leg, stinger arresting hook, and other navalizations — performed its initial flight on 14 November 1969. The Jaguar M completed carrier deck trials before being cancelled in favor of the Dassault Super Etendard. The other four variants all went into production, with initial production aircraft flying in 1972 and the type migrating into AdA and RAF service over the next few years. The AdA retained the designations of Jaguar A for the single seater and Jaguar E for the two seater, but the RAF single seater Jaguar S became the Jaguar Ground Attack / Reconnaissance Mark 1 (GR.1), while the two seater Jaguar B became the Jaguar Trainer Mark 2 (T.2). Production workshare was split 50:50 between the contractors, with BAC building the wings, engine intakes, rear fuselage, and tail assembly, while Breguet built the nose, center fuselage, and landing gear. There were final assembly lines in both countries to build their respective national variants, with BAC rolling out Jaguars at Warton and Breguet producing them at Colomiers, near Toulouse. Rolls-Royce and Turbomeca had a similar arrangement, each building half of the Adour engines, with Rolls completing British Adours at Derby and Turbomeca turning out French Adours at Tarnos. The Jaguar was the first Anglo-French combat aircraft, and said to be the first RAF aircraft to be designed in metric. It would go on to prove a valuable asset to all the air forces that operated it. The fact remained that the Jaguar didnt really answer the requirements for which the program had been originally established, and these requirements remained outstanding. The RAF would eventually acquire the sophisticated strike aircraft sought in the AFVG effort as the Anglo-German-Italian Panavia Tornado, and an advanced jet trainer in the form of the BAe Hawk. The French would acquire the trainer / light-attack aircraft in the form of the Franco-German Breguet-Dornier Alpha Jet. r/Jose References: sepecat.info/b/history/ abovetopsecret/forum/thread198224/pg1 airvectors.net/avjag.html
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 13:00:00 +0000
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