Originally Posted by
Mogwi
I believe that No1(F) might have brought recce pods aboard but they were not used by SHARs and I cannot remember their use by GR3s.
Mog
Having just finished
RAF Ground Attack: Falklands I can confirm that Jerry Pook flew at least one mission with the pod as did others. Unsurprisingly he wasn't a fan of it as it, as its design required increasing the already high risk of being shot down. Apparently as it was designed to be used at 420 kts and 250 feet "coverage was severely limited at heights below this".
He was tasked to look for the land based Exocet launcher near Port Stanley:
Because of the poor coverage of the recce pod I had to spend a lot time flying along with one of the wings slightly raised, using opposite rudder to counteract the tendency to turn, ... the wretched cameras in the pod kept stopping ... (This was a pretty normal operating problem with our crummy recce pod)
The issues meant next day "the Boss and Beech launched .,. for a repeat of the Exocet recce".
He also mentions the replacement, at his suggestion, of the 4 inch lenses in the GR3's F95 with 6 inch lenses taken from the recce pods for high-level work. The additional magnification "gave quite a bit more detail for the Photographic Interpreters to study".