Several Jaguars were made, here the Airfix 1/72 models are presented. 

 

AIRFIX 
(1) JAGUAR GR.1A "The Saint"
The kit is quite rudementary in those days the best kit (now the Hasegawa kits are better). Wing span is a bit too large and there are no opened up wheel bays though on real Jaguar gear doors are often closed. There is only one fuel drop tank in the kit. Side panels on tyhe airbrakes are suggested to be open (when engines are running) but are a bit inaccurate. Filling these closed is better. 

(NOTE: the later released Airfix Jaguar GR.3 kit is the same basic kit but with addional stores like PaveSpike, ALQ-101 pod and crude overwing pylons for rather basic Sidewinders). 

Model preparation included first to drill open the exhaust pipes kit parts, also a hole was made in each fuselage half. Deepen the exhaust with a piece of bomb from the spares box and paint black inside. This will give a far greater look.

Next, open up any bays and gear wells as desired, prior to assembly with an X-acto knife. 

OK, let us start....
The cockpit interior is very basic. I added side consoles from card and a small instrument panel from card, and painted the interior matt dark grey. Coamings under windscreens are matt black. 
The kit seat is very basic (in a real Jaguar Martin Baker mk.9B). Kit parts got extra detail. Belts, seat harness and straps were made from tape. They have black and brown detail colours. Two seats are seen here...

The nose gear bay was opened up with an X-acto knife and a bay "roof" added from card. The overall fuselage and wing assembly required quite some filler and there is almost no panel detail. The panellines that are there are raised and inaccurate, sanding these away is thus no problem. 
The gun port openings were drilled out with a hand drill.

On one kit, the kit flaps and slats were cut-out and drooped. On most parked Jaguars this is seen, particularly drooped leading edge slats. This cutting was al done with a razor saw and a lot of work as the lower trailing edge flap is integrally moulded in wing plastic. Needed flap parts were made from plastic card. This requires carefull study of the real Jaguar as the flaps and slats are complicated.
 

The shape of the aft main gear bay is not entirely accurate, a small piece of card in the shape of a triangle was set in place in the main bay aft contour. Nice though are the opened air brakes and recesses. 

The overall model got a coat of grey to check for any modelling errors such as tiny gaps and irregular surfaces. Filling and sanding was done where required.

For such a small model, only some panel lines were inscribed with an OLFA P-cutter. This model will stand out due to its colour scheme to be applied.

The model got a special grey paint scheme as picked in the decalset XTRADECAL X049-72 "Fairford 1997". A Jaguar Gr.1 A of 16(R) squadron at RAF Lossiemouth is on this sheet with the "Saint" markings. 
Paints used were these enamels:
- BSC 629 lower camouflage Grey, using XTRACOLOR X36
- BSC 638 upper Dark sea grey, using XTRACOLOR X4

The overall finish was applied with the Harder Steinbeck airbrush. 

Here the masking is seen. Prior to decalling to prevent decal "silvering", add a  gloss coat, done here with  Johnson Future/Pledge)

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The model was completed by adding a metal needle as pitot tube, two tiny air date probes at the upper nose and the various antenna's. Check photos for the Jaguar desired, variations are seen. 

Two underwing fuel tanks were sourced from the 2 kits, (each Airfix kit has unfortunately only 1 fuel tank).

Finally, again an overall semi-gloss coat with added with Johnson Future/ Pledge to get an even semi-gloss sheen and to protect the decals for years to come.


The result is seen here...... Royal Air Force Jaguar Gr.1 A of 16(R) squadron at RAF Lossiemouth

A good view on the drooped flaps and ailerons and the drooped open airbrakes as usually seen on a parked Jaguar with holes nicely open. 

RAF Jaguar in the mist....

 

AIRFIX
(2) JAGUAR GR.1A  RAF Pink Scheme "Gulf War"

This is a photo of a RAF Jaguar in this scheme I took at the Fairford Air Tattoo in 1991

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Filling again requires still quite some work. The main gear doors, like on most Jaguars, remained closed (as depicted in the model).

On this model some air intake doors were opened up on the intake sides. This is sometimes seen on Jaguars. The holes were opened up and the doors were made from plastic card. (The wing was not further detailed with separated flying surfaces).

The finish and paint scheme for this model was choosen for a "Pink / Desert" scheme Jaguar of the Royal Air Force. Decals came from MODELDECAL set 109. It has decals for a RAF GR.1A of the "Desert Cats". They were based at Muharraq/Bahrain end 1990 during the Gulf War. This Jaguar has the normal tail end cone. Some Jaguars got retrofitted with a short droge chute fairing. 

The GR1 laser nose was opened up with an X-acto knife and Micro Kristal Klear used to suggest a laser window.

The overall finish with the airbrush and paints used were:

- Overall Pink , approx FS30372: XTRACOLOR X32 or Humbrol 250 can be used. I picked GUNZE SANGYO 313 acrylic with a drop of red acrylic mixed in. Please note that considerable variations in the "pink" were seen between aircraft; FS30279 was quoted as well as a match by Trimite. Again, there were variations and on this small 1/72 model I added a lot of acrylic white as well to get a lighter scale effect. 

After basic pink finishing, put a GLOSS coat on the pink model with the airbrush prior to decalling to prevent decal "silvering". Modeldecals do not have the greatest backing decal glue, so take these precautions. (this GLOSSING was done here with Johnson Future/ Pledge )

A "fake canopy" was painted black that is situated at the nose gear bay.

The fit on the windscreen is not very good, the gaps were "closed" using white glue. When dry, the frame and gaps were hand painted. Also, the canopy would be set open. A small piece of metal wire will help here to get a stronger joint. 

Special attention was given on the stores set on this kit. It would be fitted with the peculiar upper wing missile pylons, which were not seen on many aircraft. Also, some metal casted parts were used from C-Scale metal set AC12.  This set is very rare now and had parts for  2 x fuel tanks, a big recconnaisance pod, the Phimat pod with adapter and also ALQ-101 ECM pod, AN/ALE-40 chaff/flare dispensers and bombs like two CBLS and two "noses" for LGB's . The metal aerials are better made from thin card.

Aft of the main gear, extra Tracor AN/ALE-40 flare dispensers were added just in front of the ventral fins. 

Sidewinder AIM-9L missiles were retrieved from the spares box to be fixed on upper wing pylons. I can not recall were those came from.. ? 

A very special configuration. Bombs were also set on lower wing pylons. 

The model was completed by adding a metal needle as pitot tube, two tiny air data probes at the upper nose and the various antenna's. Many Desert War Jaguars got a new single V/UHF antenna aft of the canopy on the spine. Check real photos for the Jaguar model desired, variations are seen. Some antenna's are black, others yellow. 

.........

Wingtip lights and other anti-collision lights were painted and got a transparant drop of Micro Kristal Kleer. The RWR fairing on the vertical tail got medium brown ends. 

After decalling, a semi-matt varnish coat was applied using Johnson Future/Kleer with some 5% Tamiya X21 matting agent added. 

The result is a fine finished Desert scheme Jaguar RAF GR.1A of the "Desert Cats"..... On this model the airbrakes were set closed as if the Jaguar just arrived and was parked. 

(click to enlarge...)

Markings show this aircraft did quite some missions. Also note the opened up air intake doors. 

This Airfix Jaguar was made more than 20 years ago. At the time, the kit was made to have an opened-up gun bay for maintenance. The main gear doors were also opened-up and boxed in with plastic card. 

These interiors got details from scrap and were painted "chromate green". 

The intakes got a "cover" with "remove before flight" vanes. The laser nose was opened up and Micro Kristal Kleer used to suggest a laser window. 

MODELDECAL SET 46 was used on this model at the time, with a camouflaged Jaguar GR1 of RAF 226 OCU at Lossiemouth, Scotland. Note the overall "wrap around scheme" , and the standard RAF camouflage colours are:
- BSC 641 green
- BSC 638 dark sea grey. 
Many paints are available for these BSC ("British Standard Colours") colours. 

The Modeldecal set also has various stencils including the NO STEP markings. I added red warning "remove before flight" ribbons.

Before applying Modeldecals, ensure the paint has a very gloss finish applied with (Future) varnish, otherwise "silvering" will occur as these decals have a terrible glue layer. (see note above...)

 Note the mirrors inside the canopy and brake wires on the gear legs.

.... with the opened up gun bays...
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On to the Hasegawa kits on the [ Next Page.... ]