In February 1979, Wing Commander (Natty) Nadkarni of the Indian Air Force and three colleagues were assigned to conversion training on SEPECAT Jaguars in Britain, fighter aircraft newly-acquired for squadrons of the Indian Air Force. Nadkarni was part of the first ferry flight of these aircraft home to India. The Indian Air Force still uses this fighter type today.

More used to the heat extremes of India, the four Indian Air Force pilots went through a number of preparations on arrival in England. They began by imbibing British beer in quantity and eating the exotic delicacy known as the Wimpy Burger, a ceremonial precursor to being dumped in the English Channel for sea-survival training. After that the intrepid quartet went to the ‘Jewel of the Moray Firth’, Lossiemouth, as RAF Lossiemouth was then the home of the Jaguar conversion team. After all, they were becoming Jaguar pilots, a tough job which requires tough indoctrination. Bracing February winds off the North Sea were part of that.

Lossiemouth average temperatures in February are around 1ºC. More than a decade ago I used to travel in and out of Fort McMurray, Alberta, which gets even colder than Lossiemouth in winter. Given it is also far enough north to see the Aurora Borealis, it was then a magnet for young Japanese couples, as the sight of this heavenly phenomenon is thought to bring their marriage good fortune.

As I regularly walked across from the Air Canada Dash-8 on arrival to the terminal door in my ‘proper’ winter coat I had the habit of loitering a little on the tarmac, just to see the faces of the visitors as the minus 15ºC or lower air hit them. It wasn’t a long walk and their tour guide would provide real winter clothing, but I imagine Natty and his team may have had similar facial expressions on arrival in Lossiemouth.

The Indian Air Force’s quarter century experience with the Anglo-French jet ground attack Jaguar is documented at the very enjoyable Bharat-Rakshak web site (from which I also developed my earlier ‘South from Chakeri’ B-24 Liberator feature article). The Jaguar story is at the page http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Aircraft/Current/607-Jaguar-25.html .

The routing of the ferry flight below is approximately the one used by the two BAE test pilots to make the first deliveries (with Wing Commander Nadkarni doubling up in one of the pair, a trainer). Starting from Warton, a BAE Systems airfield, they made stopovers at Toulouse (France), Brindisi (Italy), Luqa (Malta), Akrotiri (Cyprus), Seeb (Oman), to arrive in Jamnagar (India) on July 27 1979. I have assumed the use of military airbases when available in the locations.

EGNO LFBF LIBR LMML LCRA OOMS VAJM

If you fly this you will need to work out waypoints for each segment. There are a number of Jaguar freeware packages for FS2004 (with an FSX modification) available in the Flightsim library.

If you make the journey let me know! It is still on my ‘to do’ list.

Allan Jones

allanj12@gmail.com

http://moonscourse.blogspot.ca/