Introduction

Kitty Hawk have released two previous versions of the Sepecat Jaguar, the French A version followed by the British Gr1/3. This release is two-seat training version for the Royal Air Force, of which one prototype and 38 production aircraft were built. The aircraft were capable of the secondary role of strike and ground attack. Two Jaguar T.2s were flown by Empire Test Pilots School and one by the Institute of Aviation Medicine. Equipped for in-flight refueling and had a single Aden cannon.
The previous release reviews by Rowan and Luiciano can be found here and here.

The new bits

90 percent of the kit is the same as the last release’s, so for this first look review I will concentrate on the new parts.
So what do we get in this latest Kitty Hawk Jaguar is a new sprue which holds the forward two seat fuselage halves, with the extra cockpit. A new clear sprue for the two canopies and the middle glazed part, a new photo-etch fret that includes the extra cockpit details and of course two decal sheets.
Detail for the forward fuselage halves is comparable with the rest of the kit with fine recessed panel lines. The cockpit is pretty well detailed with both cockpits built as separate items, then mounted to the nose gear undercarriage bay, the rear cockpit sits on a raised area.
Two clear parts must be added to the inside of the nose fuselage halves.
A French Jaguar E cannot be built as the right hand side cannon has been faired over, and the French machines still had both cannons fitted. A strange decision by Kitty Hawk as a new right side fuselage would need to be moulded for this machine!
The new P.E fret holds the new cockpit parts which include instrument and side panels, harnesses, afterburner rings, and the afterburner petals.
The clear parts are thin, distortion free and packed in their own bag.
The new sprue also contains a pair of CBLS-100 practice bomb containers, with the four small bombs it carries. A chaff and flare dispensers that sit under the rear fuselage are also supplied which are fitted to RAF machines.
The rest of the weapons are from the earlier releases, but the trainer version couldn’t carry any of the French weapons.
Unfortunately Kitty Hawk have only supplied one fuel tank for the center line, where most training aircraft in photo’s have the two fuel tanks under the wings.
Weapons for the British versions are as follows.
2 x AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles
2 x OBL755 Iron bomb
2 x Matra 155 rocket pods
2 x BGL480 Laser Guided Bomb
1 x fuel tank
Now my personal walking Jaguar book, (Luiciano), has sent me the weapon load outs for the T.2 and T.4 and he states, “the Jag T.2 / 4 were fully combat capable so could carry any weapon that the GR.1 / 3 (not the French stuff) could, however it never had the overwing sidewinder rails and I have not found evidence of it carrying LGB's although it is possible (good job the box ones are French). The most common load out I've seen in the ref was five practice 1000lb bombs, one centre line and two under the inner wing station each side, however you cannot do this with the kit as you don't have enough bombs and the pylon mount (in the kit) is wrong for RAF Jag's. French Jag's have the bombs mounted side by side (kit part) where as RAF have them inline ie. one behind the other.
Another possible load out would be two x 1000lb bombs in line under the centre station and one under each outer wing pylon with drop tanks under the inner wing pylons, or replace the centre station bombs with a practice bomb carrier and also do away with the outer wing bombs.”
Thanks Lucky.

Instructions and Decals

The instructions are pretty much the same as the earlier ones with the only major difference the first few steps concerning the new forward fuselage and two cockpit builds. A couple of minor parts are added to this release along the way.
The two schemes that can be modelled are stapled to the middle of the instruction booklet and probably like myself the first thing you will do is unstaple them, as one scheme you won’t be able to fully see the profile pics. The schemes are in full colour, with all four profiles.
The two marking options are
• Jaguar T.2 XX842 33 of 2 Squadron, wrap-around grey and green camouflage.
• Jaguar T.2 XX830 of the Empire Test Pilots School, Raspberry ripple red, white and blue scheme.

No marking options are given for the T.4 version, so the aftermarket decal guys should have a clear field for the later grey machines.
The decals are a little hit and miss, as the red, white and blue roundels don’t look right with the red slightly off center. The ETPS school white band that goes on the drop tank, has the text offset.
All the white and red stripes for the ETPS machine are supplied as decals.
The smaller decal sheet has the stencils for the weapons.
Carrier film for the decals are minimal, apart from the tail fin stripes which are one decal for the four stripes.

Please remember, when contacting retailers or manufacturers, to mention that you saw their products highlighted here - on AEROSCALE.