SEPECAT Jaguar GR.1/GR.1A – Airfix 1:48

Reviewer’s Name: Dave Coward
Kit Ref: A11010
Also see: Geoff’s Airfix SEPECAT Jaguar GR.1/GR.1A 1:48 build

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The SEPECAT Jaguar is a British-French supersonic jet attack aircraft initially employed by the British Royal Air Force and the French Air Force for close air support and nuclear strike missions.
Just before we get on with this review here’s a look at the finished models just to let you see how they all turned out…

A Tale of Two Jags

This build was never planned to be a double build, I had always planned on doing both a Desert Gulf War (GW1) and an Arctic Jag but not right now and not at the same time. My initial plan was to build the desert Jag using a selection of aftermarket parts that had become available since Geoff’s build. I will list all the parts I used further down but the one driver for the second build was my purchase of Eduard GR.1A cockpit. I picked this set over the earlier GR.1 version as it had the later ejection seat which was fitted to GW1 aircraft.

When I looked closer at this I was not convinced that it was a GR.1A cockpit as the HUD unit appeared to be a later GR.3 unit. I did contact Eduard regarding this and their response was that these units were used on GR.1As but looking at reference photos I couldn’t see this, they all showed the earlier HUD version that is in the GR.1 cockpit set.

Additionally, I had the opportunity to ‘crawl’ all over several GR.3 Jaguars at RAF Cosford and they all had the later HUD unit. A look at the Jaguar pics in the SMN Photo Ref Library also confirmed this. As this HUD unit ‘error’ was so obvious (to me) I felt I couldn’t use it for my Desert GR.1A. That meant a change of direction was needed if I wanted to use this cockpit but it still wasn’t as easy as just doing a GR.3 now as the instrument panel was still correct for the GR.1 – namely it didn’t have the MFD that was fitted to the GR3.

A quick look through the spares box provided me with a solution to the MFD but more about that that later but the result was I could do a GR.3 using the cockpit I had bought. It was also at this time that I had the luck to a ‘stash swap’ and acquire myself a second Jaguar kit. With the knowledge I now had regarding the differences between a Gr.1 and GR.3, the other aftermarket parts had bought and the second kit I could now also do a Desert Jag as well as the GR3 so I decided just to do a dual build and this is how the ‘Tale of Two Jags’ came about.

The Jags I planned to do were:
GR.1A XZ356 ‘Mary Rose’ Muharraq, Saudi Arabia 1991 – Desert Cat
GR.3A XX720 ‘GB’ 54 Sqn, RAF Coltishall – Artic Cat

Aftermarket Extras:

There are a lot of parts listed below – these are what I used on BOTH builds and I will, at the end of the build, clarify what I thought was worth using and what wasn’t, so don’t feel that all these parts are required – they aren’t as I will explain later.

And:
ACMI Pod – from the spares box

References:

SMN Photo Reference Library
World Air Power Journal Volume 11
Jaguar Squadrons – Richard L Ward
Various Magazines

The Airfix SEPECAT Jaguar GR.1/GR.1A build…