Interesting Jag defect, how it was corrected and how BAe appeared to claim credit for
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Interesting Jag defect, how it was corrected and how BAe appeared to claim credit for
Watch the film and read the blurb.
Published on 30 Oct 2016This is the story of how a Jaguar aircraft of the Indian Air Force was saved and an important defect discovered.
As a follow up of this story here is what I heard from a retired Indian Air Force officer who was peripherally involved:
"Let me clarify that the BAe initially told the IAF that our modification was not the right one and they would not be responsible for any mishaps. But we stuck to our stand as our test pilots and technical staff had gone through the entire modification and confirmed its veracity. A few days later, there was a similar incident in the RAF and they were able to recover the aircraft by following our drill - putting the battery off and then selecting the undercarriage down. A few months later, there was an air show, I think at Dubai. BAe representative there boasted how quick they were to come up with a modification after the incident. Fortunately, one of the representative from HAL was there within hearing distance. He immediately pointed out that it was an Indian modification (we had come up with the solution within two weeks while the British guys were clueless for more than three months) and the British had just copied it and given their own name!"
As a follow up of this story here is what I heard from a retired Indian Air Force officer who was peripherally involved:
"Let me clarify that the BAe initially told the IAF that our modification was not the right one and they would not be responsible for any mishaps. But we stuck to our stand as our test pilots and technical staff had gone through the entire modification and confirmed its veracity. A few days later, there was a similar incident in the RAF and they were able to recover the aircraft by following our drill - putting the battery off and then selecting the undercarriage down. A few months later, there was an air show, I think at Dubai. BAe representative there boasted how quick they were to come up with a modification after the incident. Fortunately, one of the representative from HAL was there within hearing distance. He immediately pointed out that it was an Indian modification (we had come up with the solution within two weeks while the British guys were clueless for more than three months) and the British had just copied it and given their own name!"
On the face of it, BAE should have given India a new Jag and paid for the repair to the second. And taken all involved to a decent dinner after gongs were distributed 
Intellectual property? I don't think so.
Intellectual property? I don't think so.
The point being that if the solution was so bleeding obvious why was it that it didn't occur to anyone for the nearly 3 hours of in-flight investigations beforehand?
It clearly wasn't something that happened on every flight, or even that frequently (how many Jag fleet hours had there been before these incidents), and it must have been something really wierd if it even inhibited the nitrogen system (I'm not a Jag man so I could be wrong in assuming it has one). Having dealt with the indians on other aircraft it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't relase incident data to the DA (so the DA had no data on which to conduct an investigation) and/or declined to authorise a PDS task to look into it.
PDR
It clearly wasn't something that happened on every flight, or even that frequently (how many Jag fleet hours had there been before these incidents), and it must have been something really wierd if it even inhibited the nitrogen system (I'm not a Jag man so I could be wrong in assuming it has one). Having dealt with the indians on other aircraft it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't relase incident data to the DA (so the DA had no data on which to conduct an investigation) and/or declined to authorise a PDS task to look into it.
PDR
