Sepecat Jaguar: Tactical Support and Maritime Strike Fighter

The SEPECAT Jaguar was a less famous Ango-French collaboration then the Concorde , but aurguably more sucessful. This beautifully produced book tells the story of the Jaguar with extensive illustrations in colour, and the personal stories of the men who flew the Jaguar in combat.

In the early 1960’s, both Britain and France had a requirements for a new Trainer / Light Strike aircraft. In addition, British politicians liked the idea of a collaborative program as a means of improving relations with the French and gaining a foothold into the European Common Market.

Despite some early problems, development got underway, leading to the first Jaguar flight on 8th September 1968. 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.

"SEPECAT Jaguar: Tactical Support and Maritime Strike Fighter" by Martin W. Bowman has recently been published by Pen and Sword Aviation. It covers the initial Anglo-French agreement and the subsequent development of the Jaguar, but the real "meat" of the book is it’s coverage of the SEPECAT Jaguars in service with primarily the RAF and the French AdA.

The book is divided into 8 chapters, with the initial chapter covering the development and introduction of the SEPECAT Jaguar into service, and subsequent chapters covering different phases of the service life of the Jaguar, including Gulf War operations. Also included is a chapter covering the worldwide versions and variants of the Jaguar, icluding those used by the Omani, Indian and Nigerian Air Forces.

One of the outstanding features of the book is the way it covers Jaguar operations through the personal stories of the pilots who flew them. This adds real interest to a subject that could easily have been little more then a dry list of the Jaguars deployments, and gives a great insight into the life of an Air Force pilot.

Also impressive is the number and quality of photographs and illustrations. One of my favourites is an image displaying the extraordinary range of weaponery that could be carried by the Jaguar, as shown here.

Towards the back of "SEPECAT Jaguar: Tactical Support and Maritime Strike Fighter" are a number of Appendix’s detailing the specifications of the various SEPECAT Jaguar versions, the Worldwide Operators, and a complete list of the Jaguars that served with the RAF, including details of accidents and aircraft losses.

The last few pages of the book are perhaps my favourite. A number of high quality colour profiles created by Dave Windle. It’s impossible to do justice to them here, so I have included a close-up from one of them. It includes similar illustrations of Jaguars in British, French, Indian, Omani and Nigerian service.

For anyone with an interest in the SEPECAT Jaguar , or with the real story of Airforce operations, this is an excellent book and a worthy purchase. I have yet to see a better book on the subject!