Tag Archives: jaguar

English Day at Exotics@RTC

I didn’t get to Exotics@RTC this year as much as I would have liked.  Sometimes the weather conspired against them and sometimes I couldn’t make it anyway.  I did mange to make some of the special days, though, and one of these was the English Day.  This tends to have more of a vintage feel to it than some of the other special days.  Yes, there are plenty of McLarens and Aston Martins but a lot of older stuff to mix it up a bit.

You get the Bentleys and Rolls (not sure how well they qualify as English anymore) and there are Jags all over the place but there are plenty of less common types and definitely a few of the ones that probably keep mechanics busy.  You have no idea how many jokes about Lucas electrical systems you can hear in the space of an hour.  Aside from these shots, I also took a little video to share with my sister on the day and have edited that down a bit to include below.

Boscombe Down Aviation Collection

Middle Wallop was my first aviation museum of our vacation but there was a second.  I didn’t have a lot of time but, with a small gap in the schedule and a very accommodating wife, we headed to Old Sarum, home of the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection.  For those not familiar with UK military aviation, Boscombe Down is the center of military test in the UK and has a variety of unusual aircraft that are used for test duties and test pilot training.

The weather was dismal but the vintage hangars meant I could stay dry (although there were a couple of exhibits outside including a Hunter and the nose of a Comet).  The collection is full of interesting items.  There are whole airframes and cockpit sections from others.  The cockpits are all accessible and, if I had been there longer, I would probably have got in to some of them.  However, time was tight and hopping in wasn’t that important to me.  There were a variety of Canberra front fuselages and a Sea Vixen.  Some of the exhibits are special enough to justify their own posts so those will come in due course.  The stories of restoration of the airframes were pretty interesting too and a lot of good work had been done to preserve them.  (As an aside, the one thing I was a little disappointed in was the painting of the aircraft.  The colors and markings seemed inaccurate which seemed at odds with the great efforts made in to earth respects.)

A Sea Harrier was on display as was a Jaguar.  One of the highlights for me was Hawk XX154.  This is the first Hawk built and one that had a full career in test duties ending up at Boscombe.  It was moved to Old Sarum by the RAF with a Chinook lifting it across as a training exercise.  It is displayed in its final gloss black finish but I will always think of it in red and white.  There is also a front fuselage from one of the ETPS Hawks that was written off in an accident.

So much variety of exhibits and definitely a top place to visit if you like military aviation.  The nice thing is that the airframes are unusual in their configuration and history.  They tend not to be regular squadron jets so give extra to learn about.  I would love to go back again some time.

The Supercar That Kind Of Wasn’t

One of the more interesting vehicles (among a ton of interesting vehicles) at the Avants event in Woodinville was a Jaguar XJ220.  This was something that was developed in the early 90s and was supposed to be a big impact in the super car world.  Intended to get to about 200mph (which it almost did), it was a huge vehicle with a twin turbocharged V6 engine (not the V12 which was originally considered).  It was long, wide and very fast.  It was also very expensive costing something like GBP400k at the time.

Unfortunately for it, the super car market took a bit of a dive at that time with the economy not being great.  Also, McLaren introduced the F1 which was fast and light.  (It also did not seem terribly well because of the same market conditions but did turn a small profit when the racing versions were sold.)  Production of the XJ220 never reached the intended numbers and the unsold vehicles at the end of the line ultimately were sold for some pretty low prices.  It just didn’t really arrive at the right time.

It is a hell of a car to see in person.  It is very big.  The width of the vehicle head on is impressive but the length of it is something else.  It also seems quite unusual compared to more modern cars in that the wheels are a long way in from each end of the car.  The wheels themselves are strange too with quite a small wheel compared to the tire unlike a modern super car with low profile tires.  It’s a shame that it never really had the impact that was intended but it was cool to see one out on display.

Jaguar Details

During the British day at Exotics@RTC, there were some old Jaguars taking center stage in the shopping area.  I was checking out the grill on one of them and looked at the headlights.  There was a little logo in the middle of the lights that I had not noticed when looking at previous cars.  I guess it is an original feature but it could be an aftermarket thing.  That seems out of keeping with the way these vehicles are maintained so I hope it is original.

Tornados and a Jag – My Old Handling Buddies

In my days in the aerodynamics department at Warton, I spent time working on the current aircraft handling section.  This included a number of types but the main focus was on jaguar and Tornado work.  When we were walking around the hangars at Duxford, there were examples of both jets on display.  The Tornado was a big part of what I worked on and I had always loved the jet as it was coming in to service at the time I was getting interested in aircraft.  The GR4 version is on display.

The Jaguar had been around a long time when I was getting into planes and the Tornado ended up replacing the Jaguars in the RAF Germany strike role.  The jet continued for a lot longer though and got some decent upgrades late in life.  I had a great time climbing over a jet in the hangar at Warton as we were looking at clearing a new store on the overwing pylon.  A lot of fun!

An Exotic Collection of Cars

B11I7246.jpgThe dinner at Eagle Field was held in the large hangar.  Not only does this accommodate planes but it also seems to be the home to a lot of cars.  Jaguars of a variety of vintages were kept there in various states of repair.  Out the back were even more cars.  These were not usually looking too healthy but there were some things I have not seen before.  Whether it was an old Renault or and Armstrong Siddeley, they were there gathering valley dust and withering slowly under the harsh sunlight that this area has a lot of!

Desert Pink Jets (and not jets)

wpid13510-03-0303.jpgMy friend, Ben, put some pictures on Facebook of a Jaguar being restored in Arizona that is being painted in the desert pink colors that were used during the first Gulf War.  I worked a little on Jags in my days at BAe and have always thought it was a cool jet.  It is nice to see one showing up in restoration over here.  It triggered a discussion between a few of us about the colors that were used at that time.

wpid13500-02-0701.jpgIn 1991, I went to Mildenhall for the, then annual, Air Fete.  The Air Fete went away a while back and now it looks like Mildenhall itself will follow into the realms of “once upon a time”.  However, there was a time when the Air Fete was possibly the premier military air show in the UK.  For a while it was a regular feature of my year.  (The weekend before my university finals started was I a) studying hard at college or b) at Mildenhall for the show?  I was studying aeronautical engineering so surely it counted?)

wpid13494-02-0601.jpgThis was the first big show after the end of the war in the gulf and a lot of the aircraft that were on display were pretty much unchanged.  This included the desert colors that had been applied in a hurry along with mission markings and less official images that the crews had painted.  One of the Tornados on display showed how quickly things had been done.  They had painted the jet with the flight refueling probe still attached which, when removed, left a grey patch amongst the pink on the front fuselage.

wpid13502-02-0801.jpgNot everything was pink.  The tankers that went over had already adopted a hemp color in the previous years so they were already quite well prepared.  Also, a Chinook was on display that had a mottled finish that was supposedly the result of being used for special forces missions.

wpid13508-03-0302.jpgNeedless to say, most of these colors were pretty quickly removed as the aircraft where cleaned up after their return and put through some deeper maintenance and the rapid war modifications either removed or upgraded to a clear condition.  (Lots of mods were done under a “war only” approval.  They were less likely to kill you then the opposition but hadn’t gone through the full clearance process.  They weren’t approved for peacetime use until a more thorough evaluation had been done.  Of course, we had a fair bit of testing experience to do the clearances with given how much they had flown in theater!)

wpid13498-02-0604.jpgThe pictures are scanned from old negatives so not fantastic but they are a snapshot of an interesting time!

wpid13496-02-0602.jpg wpid13504-02-0802.jpg