The SEPECAT Jaguar: The Tip of the Spear in the Cold War 

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9:23. Did that plane have sidwinders mounted to the tops of the wings? That's the coolest thing I've seen on a plane.

I worked on 16 sqn jags Lossiemouth. Beautiful aircraft. Low level beast.

2 of these , at full thrust, blew over my head at around 50 feet on the top of a hill in the scottish borders, they even had the famous jaguar camo on, and both planes were banked for turning, and I could see both pilots, one of which had his thumbs up, it was simply the most awesome thing to ever happen to me, and for that, the sepcat will always be my favourite jet fighter of all time, I will remember that to the end of my days, simply an awsome machine for its time, and it spent a long time in service.

This fighter is severely underrated, nobody talks about it. When I was a kid, I had a Dinky Toys version of a Jaguar, with retractable landing gear and working ejection seat. Dinky made really cool planes and helicopters in the '70s, and stuff from the various Gerry Anderson shows.

I worked on the development of anti-armour missiles for Jaguar and consequently saw quite a lot of video of typical attacks performed by the aircraft. They left me astonished at the level of skill demonstrated by the pilots, which included inverted flying to keep as close as possible to the ground in mountainous terrain and flying at very low altitudes when acquiring targets and operating weapon systems. It took a very special pilot to fly a Jaguar in the ground attack role. In fact, it flew so low and fast, with a window of opportunity of just a few seconds to attack a target, it proved very difficult to design any guided anti-armour weapon for the aircraft, because the missile airframe couldn't generate enough lateral (off boresight) acceleration to make them worthwhile.

At the height of the cold war I spent three years working on a Jaguar squadron in Germany, prior to that had spent two years at Coltishall and two years at Lossiemouth. Squadron life in Germany was very different, especially as the inner German border was about a hundred miles away. We operated out of Hardened aircraft Shelters, training flying during the week ended Friday afternoon when the aircraft were made serviceable, Brake parachutes were removed and replaced with a chaff dispenser, guns were reloaded with armour piercing rounds and the aircraft were loaded with cluster bombs. Monday it was all removed back to normal flying. There was also the QRA hardened aircraft shelters where a number of aircraft were always fully loaded with W177, ready to launch in minutes, with crew, pilots and ground crew sleeping in separate shelters just yards from the aircraft.

1:20 - Chapter 1 - Design & development 4:15 - Mid roll ads 5:30 - Back to the video 8:15 - Chapter 2 - Specs & capabilities 13:15 - Chapter 3 - Service life & retirement

A great jet, over 30 years of service in the RAF. The French Jaguar damaged in the Gulf in 1991 is on display at Le Bourget, Paris aircraft museum.

Need the Jag in DCS.

There's footage from a US fighter in Desert Storm doing a 'low level attack' at around 300 feet, with the GIB pointing a camera down at a RAF Jaguar going between 50 foot high trees, a little above half the height of the trees off the ground.

That pic on the front is a bit odd

For anyone who cares, there's one on display at the yorkshire air museum at elvington in the uk 👍👍

I lived near RAF coltishall as a kid. The jags were the plane of my youth. I’d go watch these beasts take off, in awe. Wonderful

Thumbnail isn’t the actual vehicle AGAIN… if you guys can’t get that basic bit right it brings the validity of the content of the video itself into question

Please do a video on the Panavia Tornado!!

The Jag was awesome, even if it looked like it had skinny model legs. Made so many of these as Airfix kits as a kid.

My mate and I were over from Australia for a holiday in Scotland in 1986. While in Aviemore, we decided to climb one of the hills to sit and enjoy the view. As we were sitting there, without any warning...one of these beasts came roaring along the valley from behind us...BELOW us...and proceeded to scream along the valley as if he was attacking the Death Star. An absolutely amazing brown trousers experience.

Can’t help but to wonder that the swing wing concept ended up as the Panavia Tornado 5:41

What the hell is with this AI art you're using now for the thumbnails?

Everybody speaks about the ''sexy'' fighters, like the Mirage 2000, Mig 29 etc.. of the Cold War, but this plane would have been the work horse in a war in Europe for those two countries, the strike plane that would try to relentlessly slown down the red hordes... and the cost was assumed to be the vast majority of them would have been destroyed (with many of their crews) in a matter of days... Since I was a kid and see some TV and press works on the French and British versions at work in Desert Storm 1991 I was always fascinated by this plane.

I loved the Jaguar design with its double rear wheels and dainty dimensions, I still remember admiring them during the gulf war along with the tornado of course.

Could've shown the one landing on the M55. There's a long straight on the M6 close by, the bridges were made to be removed easily for the same reason. When they were upgraded in the 80's they'd thrown most of the tooling away and it had to be remade at Strand rd Preston.

Where I lived in Northamptonshire, a mostly quiet village, late 70's, 80's, everyday was like an air show. You could always see a pair of F111's with their wings out on standby flying around. Always hear the whine of A10's and watch them duelling over the fields. Vulcans at nearly ground level and, Jaguars. I remember once on a bike ride, sunny summer day, one came over head, nearly knocked us off our bikes. Never heard it coming, shot over our heads completely silent and then a sudden roar and the wind, parting the corn in the field as it sped away. We used to fly control line model air craft, 50ft wires, if it was over 50 feet I'll eat my hat. What a sight and sound! And the sound of freedom. What a machine! We used to cycle the 30 miles to Alconbury, watch the Deltics on the WCML and watch the stuff taking off. Once a jeep drove up to the fence and a guy shouted at us in American as to what we were doing. We were taken aback becasue we had never heard a real American? I shouted back "watching the trains and planes Sir". "Good for you boys" came the reply. 30 miles back, leave when the sun starts to go down, we had no lights on our bikes, knock on a random door to ask if we can fill our water bottles, maybe raid a pea field for a snack. What times they were. Ok, we were always only always 4 minutes away from the apocalypse, Gov TV ads on how to "survive" by hiding under a door? They looked like a mini version of a TSR2? What's the plane in the thumbnail ;-) It appears to have four intakes?

Jaguars of the RAF And French Air Force were regularly seen taking off from West German Autobahns during training exercise, They didn't need too much distance to get Airborne.

The Jaguar was indeed a nice aircraft to work on from the Ground crews point of view. Just a couple of points, the overwing pylons were not "usual" - I think you misread that. Overwing pylons are decidedly "unusual". As far as I can think, only the Lightning had a similar arrangement, also with tiny wings.

Love the "Saint figure" on the pilots helmet Simon Templar. I have that tattoo

Finally someone did a video on the jaguar, well done 👏

Here's a story I got to share .. Back around the mid to late 1980s my parents had a caravan at Challabough bay just around the corner from Bigbury bay .. Anyway on one really hot sunny summers day I was on the beach with a friend all was quite ,calm ,and very relaxed when 2 Jaguars at come to think of it wasn't probably far off 500 mph bounced the beach one literally flew up the beach itself the other between Challabough and Bigbury in a simulated ground attack .. People ducked ,dogs started howling ,kids cried ,car alarms went berserk ,and topless women thought OMG were has my bikini top gone .. Honest to god true story ..and I can tell you what at 11 /12 years old I wanted to be an RAF Jag pilot.

In 2018, India cannibalised 31 airframes from purchased from France, 2 airframes from UK and Oman each, few engines and several hundred types of critically needed spares for optimum squadron serviceability.

In March of 1993 I spent a month on rotation to Kuwait with the US Army. Our units did maneuver and live fire training in the desert. On two occasions we were assembled around a terrain model preparing for the day's maneuvers when out of nowhere a Jaguar did a mock bombing run on our unit. The Jag was so low that you could feel the heat from it's engines as it passed by. Incidentally, we were at Camp Doha when two British Puma's collided and went down in full view of members of that unit's families.

My favorite videos you do are definitely the jet or military vehicles, flying or not. No matter what the content though, you have a loyal viewer in Maine.

At first I clicked on this video because I was really interested in the content, but then I realized I also clicked on this video because I want to hear a British person repeatedly use the word "Jaguar".

I have a soft spot for the RAF Jaguars that were based at RAF Coltishall. I lived in a village a short distance from the base, absolutely loved when they flew over my school loud and fast! You have covered a number of British aircraft, will you be covering the Bucaneer, Hawker Hunter or Canberra any time soon?

just throwing this idea out there : mega conflicts

The Falklands War might have turned out a lot differently if the Jaguar M had been produced and the Super Étendard never developed.

I went to an open day, invited by my dad’s friend who worked there, to BAC Warton in about 1980. They flew over Jaguars and Tornados at altitudes not to be anywhere near members of the public today. It’s one of the loudest and coolest things I ever saw as a kid.

like the channel great episode, just nota fan of the Ai art 👎you used on thumbnail

I've wanted to see a Jag-vid for a long time so thank you fir this :)

Please go back to using regular google images of the actual aircraft instead of using AI, it looks awful, your videos are nice so it sucks seeing the quality decrease

Great aeroplane spent 4 yrs working* on it in the late 90’s.

Simon I know you save money on the thumbnails but two air inlets on one side? This A I bullshit has to stop dude.

Can you review the a-1 skyraider I'd very much like to see your take on that beast of a plane

I'm actually enjoying your intentionally misleading thumbnails now, it sends everyone nuts.

The SEPECAT Jaguar has never proved proved itself in combat. The IAF still operates the Jaguar but prefers not to use it for anything except reserving it for delivering a nuclear strike.

I was in CFB Goosebay in Canada were NATO practice low leave flying. Britain and Germany had them there. Amazing to watch them

Think of thee SEPECAT Jaguar as the "TSR.2 Lite" of its time. It proved to be the perfect platform for interdiction strikes into the western part of the Warsaw Pact countries by the early 1980's, a role that was filled on the Soviet side by the MiG-27 (though the MiG-27 was nowhere as capable as the Jaguar).

Mig-27 (formerly 23BN) Soviet analog is also used in India

Lol AI image generators give jets extra intakes like they give people extra teeth and fingers

IAF planned update the engine with the help of honeywell, to handle new updates but was dropped because it was too expensive

My book Paper Tiger, Paper Dragon features the Jaguar and is actually available as a free e-book this weekend. Good timing and a great airplane!

That was awesome Simon! I'd heard of this aircraft many years ago, but had no idea how great it was. Thank you so much. I loved the video from 1:33-1:51. Kudos to whoever dreamed this up and made it happen.

At least show a picture of a Sepecat Jaguar you are in dark skies territory.

The Sepecat Jaguar >>> Master Light Bomber ... 🙏🌷🌿🌍💜🕊🇬🇧🇫🇷

Simon can you do a video on the Panavia Tornado?

Please, not another one?! The thumbnail for this video is NOT a Sepecat Jaguar! That’s at least three recent videos where the thumbnail is just wrong! Please, I normally really like your videos, but this is getting embarrassing!

Would have been so useful in Ukraine given its unfussy airfield demands combined with a certain amount of badassedness in general.

One could argue that they perfectly fulfilled their purpose, that no peer ever challenged NATO _because_ we were so armed.

Ah, I see - another unconnected thumbnail - not a Jaguar in sight. It might be better suited to the frontispiece of a Marvel comic perhaps.

Problem is, I think his prediction was actually correct, but maybe a bit early.

Beautiful aircraft

It's just a pity that the aircraft carrier capable Jaguar M never progressed beyond the prototype stage.

very nice plane

Can you please stop using the distorted audio in the video for the TV bits. It hurts my ears and gives me sensory problems 😢

Excellent stuff bro

You forgot mention the Jaguar ACT, fly by wire demonstrator. 😂

How about a new video on Sudan fights + other ongoing conflics in Africa?

Did I catch an Obi-Wan quote in there, Simon? If so, amazing work 🖖

Not left on the runway Simon

When Britain and France get together they just build ugly ducklings like the Jaguar and Concord🤓😂

Have you done a video on the English Electric Lightning? The most amazing jet fighter ever? If not, would you?

Can... You guys not use AI.images?

You already did the Vigilante.....not surprising. My "bad'

Question, and I am being serious. What were the advantages of this platform over the F-111? It is obviously much smaller, but the F-111 already came as a 2 seat aircraft, could travel faster, could fly further, and could carry more while following terrain mapping just like this aircraft. If they were looking for something to do all that the F-111 offered, I feel like there must be something that this did better for the needs of the air forces, but based on this video, we didn't really hear what they may be. Was it better for the austere locations and better landing gear that was mentioned towards the end with the service life section? I know that would be important depending on the role of the aircraft, but that seemed more of an accidental benefit rather than a design feature. Was it just that European countries wanted to design something of their own at the point to show that they could? I haven't really studied much into the mindset of postwar Europe and how things were thought of as far as purchasing in use platforms versus designing their own.

at 10:41 … "overwing pylons"! I am sure probably not

Of all the airplanes on the channel i have yet to see a swedish one, would like to see a video done on the Gripen or Viggen 🫡

Make a video about the su-34

These aircraft are also designed to land on roads and just near the old RAF Coltishall there’s a nice long road that although has a bend partway down it the jags could land there and take off from there, there’s also a lot of hidden hard standings that could have been used for maintenance and hot refuelling for jaguars and or harriers, the jags powerful engines made it a good short run take off and landing aeroplane. If your looking for the old RAF Coltishall it’s now called Badersfield, a fitting tribute to an old airfield that served with many types of aircraft.But its most famous for the Hurricanes under Douglas Bader (hence why it’s now called Badersfield) and the Jaguars were the stations Swan Song.

The Jaaaaaaag.

Fun fact: the Jaguar was the first Airfix model I ever built. Unfortunately I don't have the model any more. I think I should build another one.

It still is the sexiest and capable aircraft. ❤

Usain bolt couldnt run a 5 k without hurting himself. Its a conpletely seperate skillset. Even his coach says he doesnt run more than 800m

How many times can you fit the word "austere" into one script? Also Jennifer and Luis, maybe chill on the "old school via TV reporting Simon"-sound filter, doesn't work well with headphones. Otherwise, excellent work as always Megaprojects team!

Would you stop with AI generated thumbnails? That's not even the same aircraft....

Surely those planes at some point did training dogfights with US planes and even migs right?? So we would know how good they would have done in real combat?

All I can think when I see that name is "Septic" ROFLMAO! The"Sewage Cat"

Where do you get these bizarre aircraft images for your thumbnails?

Use the actual aircraft ffs

Basically it’s a slim Phantom F4 in a nutshell😂

It’s Duncan Sands.. the Y is silent…

Are you resorting to clickbait? Thats the only explanation i can think of for having an inaccurate on your title images. Its a real Shame because its a superb channel with great content.

i know what happens to most US planes that are retired, but what happens to UK/FR/european planes? are they scrapped or stored somewhere?

Oh God that plane has 4 air intake

What the hell was that thumbnail all about LOL

I was not aware ICBMs had a good end?

Wow, great AI art of a jet that isn't even *close* to looking like a Jaguar. How embarrassing.

I love squarespace ! Aw'right ?

Video editing critique: why would you turn a good sounding mic into something that sounds like sandpaper for ears from 1:35 to 1:45 and 7:40 - 7:45. Ugh

Good thing that they never really had to be used.

Simon, please do some more non-military content, I’m tired of war!