Dragartist comments that it is odd that the short J should be the 5.
OR asked us in DAirOps (MoD) what the
Js should termed. My answer was that for consistency the short ones should be 4, we leave 5 empty in case we modded another special a la Snoopy and made the long ones 6. This seemed to be a reasonable extension from what had preceded them.
Can't do that said OR, the sleeping policeman on the procurement road, the first ones delivered will be long and they have to take the next number, hence 4. The short ones came after the long ones and, therefore, had to be 5. The short ones were meant for SF because everybody knew that you could not do tactical landings etc or rough field ops with a long fuselage even though all the 3s had the improved landing gear as would all the
Js. We tried to get the order changed to all long but OR knew better.