I'm not sure about the 'F' - but I don't think that it's a tail code.
The panel layout seems unfamiliar. Certainly the OR946 display is correct, but the location of other gauges looks different to what I remember - but that was over 25 years ago. There doesn't seem to be any primary Central Warning Panel over by where one's right knee would be - 5 red captions 'FIRE 1, FIRE 2, HYD, OXY and CPR' plus an engine fire extinguisher and a CWP test button if I recall correctly. The 9 amber captions are in the correct position - perhaps this is a shot of a much earlier panel layout? Also, it seems to have an extra TPI gauge (in the wrong location), no cabin altimeter (that should be lower centre near the 'cabin to static' changeover cock - which, oddly enough is still on this example. Without the cabin altimeter selected to 'static', if this particular jet ever had an AC/DC failure, it would have had no altimeter at all....), a bogus turn and slip indicator (ours didn't have one, but they did have a standby artifical horizon plus the yaw dolls' eyes at the top of the panel), the hydraulic power gauge has been moved from its usual location (you can see its vacant C-shaped mounting on the left edge of the coaming) and re-located to where the cabin altimeter should normally be - plus the engine and fuel gauges don't seem to be where I remember them to have been..... A very odd panel indeed!
I'm not an expert on the Gnat - just an ex-student - but I do recall 'our' panels as having been very different. I suspect that the 'F' refers to some mod. state incorporated in this jet?
Last edited by BEagle; 22nd Jan 2003 at 05:29.