Low Level Omani Jags
 

OK chaps, I've come across 10 photos of the legendary low level Omani Jaguars. This includes the chap stood next to his trashed car, bleeding nonchanantly from his right ear (very low level!) and the wingtip with the bit of metal pole stuck in it.

I'd love to share these with you but it seems we can't attach photos anymore. Do I have to find a separate site and then make a link to them?

Snapshot, are you out there?

D'you think the Omanis have populated every Jag cockpit with chaps that are afraid of heights? I do wonder.

No snaps I'm afraid but I remember looking down on a Jag as it went by at Thumrait and I was halfway up a Victors steps (8ft maybe)

Nothing 'legendary' about them - the Toyota 'fastback' actually happened. The metal pole was from the stairs leading to the Range Safety Officer's hut.

Sorry to butt in on the Mil forum folks but here is one I found a while ago. The aviationpics.de website is worth a look through if you're bored.


Regards

JT

http://www.aviationpics.de/preview/jag1.jpg

Lovechild,

type [+img+] (without the + signs) before the URL of the picture, and then [+/+img+] (again without the + signs) after the URL, and lo....

http://www.aviationpics.de/preview/jag1.jpg

and (another Stealth undercarriage test?)

http://www.55srwa.org/image/06081104lowpass-0.jpg

Excellant! Havn't seen those for a while.......

Does anyone have the one taken from the rear seat of a twin seat jag flying along the road?

Cheers
RP

Will never forget nearly having my head taken off by these boys whilst walking near the main gate at LCRA during a visit in the late '80's.

Ok Jacko, I'll give it a try

http://www.55srwa.org/image/06081104%20lowpass-1.jpg

Hurrah!

Standby for some more pics once I get them 'hosted'

Thanks Jacko

Met the guy (RAF) who was most probably flying this Jag in OOTH recently, what a top bloke. Does a good Barbie as well.

s0d the flying - who the #ell took the photo !!

On a more nostalgic note I saw some Thumrait Hunters that had been snapped some while back in similar circumstances. Don't think they have ever made it onto the Net.

Any contributors?

The "post-in-wing" pilot was actually a RAF loan service guy on his last trip in Oman - wanted some really, really close-up shots taken from really, really close-up... I believe he is a BA captain now.

Reynolds, the first name of this Jag Pilot wouldn't be the French word for Christmas would it? :p

I'm afraid not, you'll have to come up with something new...

From the site noted above:
USAF F-4 wiring the Range Safety mates on the road back from Konya range, Turkey. Same circumstances as the Toyota ding I believe.
http://www.aviationpics.de/military/1999/f4low.jpg

Hmmmmmmmm

Can't really, without naming him.. Bloody excellent bloke though, and I understand, one of the outstanding Jaguar Pilots of his day

He was the single biggest influence on my wanting to fly Jags in the Air Force..



oooooopps Reynolds...... DOH! - lol

Thumrait
 

Salad: Are you "Tiddles"?
I spent the first week at Thumrait just looking out the window at Jags and Hunters going past at 10'.
The wing cut almost in half by the pipe from the RSO's stairs was still there. I may be wrong but I believe the pilot had a window seat the next day and arrived home to find a job offer from Britannia in the letter box.
One of the Jag photos appeared on the cover of "Flight" causing some comment when people saw how close the shadow was.

Trying to find Neil Mc Gibbon
 

I have in my posession an old copy of a movie from 1980 titled "Sand Sea and Sky" produced by Neil Mc Gibbon. Its a top production of the Jag days and life at Thummers in the 1980's and includes video of some of the stills that are in this post. I am currently restoring it to digital and DVD and trying to track the gentleman down who was responsible for the initial production. If anyone can help please PM or email I would really appreciate it as I would like to get hold of more original material to produce the best quality.

A Kiwi mate was an Air Traffiker here on loan service in those "barnstorming" days and prior to my pilgrimage to this part of the world he showed me his photo collection of what I can only describe as the most sensational beat ups I had ever seen....thats saying something after having dealt with that Kiwi A4 mob! Included were the shots coming back from the range and the Jags 180 out on the road (in the correct lane I might add!). There were shots from their Land Rover taken in the mirror with the Jag about to overtake.....the Jag modified with indicators to comply with local road traffic laws I would hope???!


The Brit loan service scheme has produced an outstanding and talented bunch of local Omani operators in all aspects from flying to ground ops, full credit to you.

:ok:

Check back in a few days...
 

I will have some Jag video on-line....

:E

Just wondered if any of you flew with my friend Stefan Karwowski in Oman years ago. Stef, a Kiwi despite the name, was the solo Jaguar display pilot in the late 70's or early 80's.
Sadly, he was later killed in a Pitts whilst visiting his family in NZ.

Tudor Owen

Fox3snapshot
 

Sadly Neil McGibbon passed away in January 2002.

Thanks for the information Claw, very sorry to hear that indeed.

:(

These two video sequences are from the video produced by Neil Mc Gibbon that I am restoring, the still is from the 30th National Day Celebrations in Oman.

Hope you like the vid, these sequences were shot in the early 80's and as mentioned previously are the video sequences of some of the stills that have been posted here.

Special thanks to John Eacott for allowing me to use his webspace.

http://www.helicopterservice.com.au/.../rafocmbo2.jpg

Jag Beatup 1

Jag Beatup 2

:ok:

Jeezus wept!! great stuff,Fox3.
Whenever I post a pick of low level stuff on another site I always get the people saying its faked, they can't argue with those clips.
;)

Not very tactical. You could see the dust storm behind the Jag from miles away!!! Great stuff from Thummers.

Bravo....as one who very much appeciates a little harmless hijinks...may have been guilty of some meself from time to time:E ...how does one get away with that in the Mil.

Is it;

1/. The boss is away and the lads will play, or
2/. A blind eye due to the requirements of war that you train for, or ??

I'll see if I can't find a rather good piccy of a beatup in a Twin otter...I think the statute of limitations may be about up :}

Chuck:E

Plenty more where that came from...
 

Glad you liked it, I am still restoring some other material from that vintage that has unfortunately seen better days. Will get some more on here when I get the chance....




Ali Barber we are overdue a beer or 3...

:8

Jag vid clips
 

Fantastic pictures and stories so far! Keep them coming

I was wondering if there was any chance that those jag vids can be downloaded as mpegs at all because i cant seem to play the WMV. Any help appreciated.

Pagwana.

Pagwana
 

They are Windows media file format so you should be able to view them on the Windows Media player, if you don't have the latest version its worth downloading. Let me know how you go, I have kept them in WMV as the compression is good and is keeping the file size down. The original clips are 60 MB.

;)

Chimbu,

It was very much SOP, and strongly encouraged by the leadership (to the extent that they closed the international airport after the National Day flypast to allow it to go ahead).

Speaking as a heli driver at the time the vids were being produced, I can aver that the standard operating altitude for rotary was 50 ft and below. Everything above that belonged to the fixed wing and the artillery. Happy memories of being taken for 1v1 and 1v2 in Troff Jones' T-bird Hunter against UAE Mirages, then later off down the Grand Canyon. Mind you, we used to get our own back by flying the stovies off into the caves...

Pleasant days

Superb!
 

Fantastic footage, never mind being spotted due to the dust cloud, any proximity fused missile couldn't cope, you'd have to rely on ground troops lobbing a grenade. Might set off a few mines though.

I look forward to more.:ok:

The USN would often request fighter affiliation sorties with the SOAF Jaguars and Hunters, and then "tell" the Omanis that they could not carry out the task if the the SOAF aircraft were armed with live weapons - the response was always "hey, you want it, you live with it..." I understand the USN pucker factor was very high....

Wow!
 

Thanks Fox, mangaged to get Windows Media Player going. Definately worth it. Fantastic footage.

Pagwana
 

Good news, glad you liked them....



:E

fOX
i CANT OPEN THE VIDEO CLIPS. wINDOWS SAYS THAT THE PATH IS INCORRECT. cAN YOU CHACK PLEASE. THANKS

They are streamed I think, they work ok on my dial up under media player but they are somewhat jerky, they load for a while then partialy play then load again and play the next bit,I do not get a complete run through.
I don't think its possible to save streamed stuff to disk is it?.
Will try on my nephews broadband.
Great clips though. ;)

Tony Draper and Uncle Cracker,

If you are having trouble accessing them, as some servers and browser set ups have a tendency to do, the next best trick is to right click on the link and if you are in IE then "save target as..." and pick a folder on your PC where you would like to store it. After you have it saved open up your media player and access it through the windows media player by opening the file you have saved. Another way is to paste the URL into your wndows player using that particular function.

I have tested them on numerous occassions and had no dramas this end, but have found IE to be a better platform to access them than Netscape for some reason. Make sure your browsers and Windows Media programs are all up to date as well.

Hope that helps if not PM me and I will try some other options for you.

:8

Excellent clips, didnt think you fast jet jockeys could mix it height wise with us Rotary types......

As a former FAF Jaguar pilot myself with some flights in Central Africa.... nice video, thanks. I just have some classical photos myself, taken from the inside of the aircraft - we were not modern enough in those days.

We had

1. ventral tanks lost on the water over very still and mirror-looking african rivers....

2. a wing-tip SRAM lost during a turn...

Always funny, good for the memory (I'm now a peaceful airline pilot) To the readers still in business : please be careful, really, I had a couple of AF mates disappearing in huge fireballs over the dunes.

I think if you are alone with your eyes and hand (not even thinking about a radalt at those heights of course) should not be a problem.

My idea is that disaster strikes when lads get involved in competition, specially with pictures to be taken.

Happy flying to all.

Recceguy
 

Agreed......

However, that is certainly not we are trying to promote here and lets face it we have all lost good mates in this business.

Generally speaking the "days of old" are gone, hence this post reflecting on those moments, but given the right circumstances and a constructive "authed" beat up (ie. within SOP's and not over the Admino's house!), any aircraft can look good doing what would typically be considered a normal day at the office, except on this occassion not at some wind blown, water beaten, bitterly cold or hot mud flat in the middle F*$$$@NG nowhere, but at sunny old home base (preferably the O's Mess on a Friday arvo!).

Safety, Safety....smoke the joint!

:E