2 FTS Syerston Jet Provost colourschemes

[Amos Keeto]

XM478/G-BDXL currently wears a silver scheme with yellow training bands, but no JPs wore this scheme in service. About a dozen JPT3s were painted in that scheme before delivery, but the RAF changed their mind and adopted the solid-dayglo paint scheme as per the attached photo of a formation of 2 FTS JPs just after delivery in 1960. Unfortunately, the old Airfix Jet Provost kit never caught up with reality and never got changed, making model-makers think that JPs entered service with yellow trainer bands, which is wrong. The solid-dayglo paint scheme lasted until 1965 when it was replaced with the dayglo Fablon paper stripes, as it was easier to replace the strips of dayglo paper than keep repainting the dayglo when it faded.