The Jaguar M; When the Big Cat Went to Sea
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 15 сен 2024
- The SEPECAT Jaguar was one of the principal attack aircraft of both Britain and France during the latter half of the Cold War. But it isn't so well remembered that one of the key requirements early in its development was to provide the French Navy with a new carrier attacker.
Sources for this video can be found at the relevant article on:
militarymatter...
If you like this content please consider buying me a coffee or else supporting me at Patreon:
ko-fi.com/edna...
/ ednash
Want another way to help support this channel? Maybe consider buying my book on my time fighting ISIS:
amzn.to/3preYyO
The Jag always was a beautiful aircraft, so sleek and purposeful looking. If one was to imagine a private sports jet, look no further. 🙂
It's Living proudly with Indian airforce only now...All other countries have retired it..
And it's completely a new aircraft now...after its Darin III upgrade..with an Elta ELM 2052 aesa radar and new avionics and newer weapons systems..
The Indian airforce calls it Deep penetrator strike aircraft.
@@rajatdani619 these aircraft would be perfect for the Ukraine Air Force 👍👍👍
I love the relic one we have at Manston Airport Museum, Kent. I pass by it frequently and look keenly at it unless I see The EE Lightning parked nearby!
@@claudebylion9932And who would pay for them?
I’m proud to say I got to sit in the cockpit of an operational Jaguar :)
That's the first footage I've seen of the M - a beautiful aircraft whether land or sea variant.
The Mitsubishi F-1 (derived from the T-2 trainer) is very similar in appearance to the SEPECAT Jaguar. The Japanese considered buying a license to build the Jaguar in country but developed their own plane. It retired around the same time as the Jaguar. The planes were worn out!
The direct replacement for the F-1 was the Mitsubishi F-2, nicknamed "Viper Zero." It's basically an enlarged Block 50 F-16 derivative.
I have a real soft spot for the Jaguar. My love of planes comes from spending many an afternoon watching the Jaguars takeoff and land at RAF Colitishall.
I do miss that base.
Good old summer times in the late 70s when I could watch Belgian Mirage III, German, Dutch and Belgian F-104 and US, German and British F-4, the latter from RAF Wildenrath. I loved both the "boom" and the brutal "roar" when they went either supersonic or passed by low.
We have so very FEW alternative bases still operational now ~
Thanks to George Osbourne & David Cameron closing most airfield to save a few quid ...................
You can bet your 🐓IF we get into more than a shouting match with the gentlemen East of Ukraine
they *won't miss* our remaining bases because there are so *very few* of them to target.
i remember them as a kid from farnborough air show. all the planes were loud, taking off but the jaguars actually hurt! 🙉😖🤕
It's Living proudly with Indian airforce now...All other countries have retired it..
And it's completely a new aircraft now...after its Darin III upgrade..with an Elta ELM 2052 aesa radar and new avionics and newer weapons systems..
The Indian airforce calls it Deep penetrator strike aircraft.
It will serve until 2030's.
One of HMG's oddest decisions IMO was to scrap the Jaguar without deploying them to Afghanistan or Iraq when they had quite a few hours still left on the airframes. They could have been pretty much run into the ground in environments they were designed for and the Treasury would not have been out of pocket.
It's so funny that Dassault was also pushing for the adoption of the single-engine Super Etandard because of the engine issue....
Facts are unimportant when one is pitching to politicians.
"Oui, le pilote avec un Etendard et no reacteur simplement flappez eze arms..."
@@FallenPhoenix86 OUI! "Catch That Pigeon," _non_ ?
Welcome to the world of business, politics and bribery
Logic has Fk Hall to do with much of it.
@@babboon5764 Jaguar M failed its Carrier Trials Massive!!! All of the orders for the M were actually built as A's for the AdA, so the number of actual aircraft originally ordered were built.
Never heard of the navalized Jaguar before. Thanks, Ed.
I live in Rochefort! Thank you for making this video! I'll be sure to share it with the naval air museum staff!
Please do. I'll have to visit the museum one day.
One of my favourite cold war aircraft. I heard it wasnt always the easiest to fly but served the RAF for a long time which must say something.
Never heard of navalised Jaguar for the French Navy. I though they always had Super Etendards. The regular Jags saw a lot of action during Desert Storm.
Thanks for your efforts your videos are always interesting. I would have thought that adapting the Jaguar for Aircraft carrier use was a no brainer it already has huge undercarriage and designed for short field operations.
Great to see some footage of HKM Karel Doorman. She was on station when my father was a NL Marine during the Dutch New Guinea war against Indonesia. Later on she was sold to Argentina. As you pointed out , she was formerly a British vessel. Funny how these things turn out..
the jaguar in general is a classic forgotten aircraft though an intresting one. remember the ones being based in brüggen. quite impressive in the air though looking somehow clumsy on the ground. i think it deserves that attention, so great video again!
While stationed at Memmingen, West Germany (1978-1981) a Few Jags flew in and stayed for a week or so. Got to tour the aircraft and got to know the ground crew. It was a blast. USAF 1975-1998.
@@patrickwalsh2884 what did the USAF fly at that time? F-15/16 already?
@@tomlobos2871 The base I was at was German and they flew f-104G's.
@@patrickwalsh2884 awsome.
Similar to the A-7 Corsair, both hard working, cost effective and accomplished ground attack aircraft overshadowed by the F-4/Lightning/F-15/16 glamour jets.
I'm a simple man, I see a video opening with footage of HMCS Bonaventure, I press like!
Thanks Ed. One of my favourite moments is witnessing two Jaguars coming in to Exeter air day early in the morning and beating up rhe airfield for 5minutes ......sensential ! (about 1982 ish ) ironically the very last airshow !
Great looking aircraft. Watching the video I did think that the Royal Navy could have used it. But as they had the Buccaneer the Jaguar would not really have a role.
The undercart on this variant really gives it a Dassault Mirage F-1 look. I wouldn't have thought the original knuckled talon like undercarriage was at all weak to begin with.
It was gorgeous 1:72 model kit of Jaguar, produced by FROG and later by NOVO in Soviet Union. She was one of most beautiful aircraft for me, avail to build at that time (1980s).😍
Actually, Heller made a model of the Jaguar M naval version !
8:28 - Great point.
Thank you for this, Ed.
☮
It wasn't the Super Etendard which was so potent, it was the Exocet it carried.
And the Sea RADAR that made the combination with the Exochet so deadly. The Jaguar could not even carry it because of the weight and had no RADAR to aim it.
@@WanderfalkeAT A fair point well made sir
@@WanderfalkeAT Indian Air Force had a variant of the Jag with the Agave radar and exocet.
The Jaguar was unique, one of a very few that had hardpoints on top of the wings.
EE Lightning
The French never used them. Only the UK and India to my knowledge, and only for short range IR air to air Magic missiles.
@@joso5554Obviously. You can't have bombs on overwing pylons.
And try lifting an AS-30L, Sea Eagle Or Exocet onto an overwing pylon.
Not worth the drag.
Love the 2CVs sneaking in to the video....
"Tales of French Military procurement" could be a channel all of it's own
not as uncommon as you might think for companies not wanting to sell a product under certain circumstances. Low volume with added costs for specialization? Extra regulatory requirements the company isn't prepared to deal with? Not having the expertise to develop their product for an application? trying to focus efforts on a more profitable market opportunity? etc.
The real reason for Dassailt not to support the Jaguar for the French Navy was that they had lost out on the programme that lead to the Jaguar.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 Yep, it was now a product they owned, but one that their competitor had developed.
3:44 this footage of the Jaguar off-roading is sick
Once more a brilliant video, Ed! I've watched every one of your videos and you never disappoint... As ever, a great choice of subject matter with well researched content, and all presented with aplomb!
Thank you! Pleased to oblige.
The image of the French cat and its one-word response were perfect.
Great video, with some great footage! Thanks!
A slightly larger wing with better air brakes and also a hot-run option for remaining engine would have resolved the issues nicely
Issues listed in this video aren't the only ones. Another was that the aircraft needed afterburner on the catapult which overheated the deflector panels, although they tried to solve the issue by welding 20mm plates on them.
Thank you, Ed, great job.
I love the Jaguar my first metal airplane was the Jag. It was a Corgi or Dinky toy. Now I always wanted a 1/48th scale plastic model of it. I have no luck finding one
Heller used to make them, both ground based and naval versions.
I like the RAF pilots comment that you needed to use afterburner on the Jaguar to get it out of the hangar!
Quality aviation video. Good subject and commentary, Thank you.
Ahh! Politics and weapons development…usually the doom of the outstanding. Beautiful looking aircraft!
Another great "What If?" video. Thank you.
Thank you. i enjoyed that bit of military aviation history.
Wouldn't be the first, or the last, time a aircraft manufacturer decides to sabotage a design that originated from a another company now would it..
Hi Ed,
I was recently at a military museum in Bucharest. They had a obscure I.A.R aircraft that looked like a La5. It had a weird blue paint scheme. They also built their own weird version of the jaguar that was part of the Romanian airport. You can see some of the pictures if you go look at the pictures on google.
That'll be the IAR 80! Ed of course already has a video on it. Search for iar 80 in RUclips - it's the first one that comes up.
Indeed!
And I think the jet, iirc, was the IAR-93, which was joint produced with Yugoslavia.
@@jackroutledge352 it's actually not the IAR 80. They had a IAR 80 right next to this La5 looking machine.
I'm really annoyed with myself that I didn't take a picture of it.
It's a Yak11SC trainer. It is a radial engined single seater. The fuselage profile is very similar to the Yak3 (from which the Yak11 was developed). It is quite a rarity without the distinctive extended canopy of the usual dual seat Yak11 variants.
good point re single engine vs twin engine, never liked the etendard with the weird turkey neck thing under the nose. I have read though that the Jag was pretty underpowered, and the only reason it could take off at all was because the earth was round ;-)
The twin-safety issue is a bit of a moot point. The Jaguar was never a hot-rod & had a comparatively low TWR, especially when taking-off with a heavy combat load. Moreover, it's wing-loading (despite possessing double-slotted flaps & full-span slats) was high for a naval aircraft intended to operate from small-carriers. Both factors meant it would have needed both engines to be operating correctly for it fly safely in such a scenario. Because both engines would have been needed there was double the chance of engine failure causing the loss of the aircraft compared to a single-engine type - I.E. it had two points of failure instead of just one. Even when lightly loaded, such as during approach & landing, the Jaguar would have been a handful as it was particularly prone to handling problems flying on one engine at low-speed, which is a somewhat less than desirable trait for an aircraft operating off a small aircraft-carrier.
Thank you. All new to me.
When Britain and France get together and stop treating each other as rivals they do some great things like the Channel Tunnel, Concord and the Jaguar.
Jaguar must be one of the sleekest aircraft design out there.
I always like to wonder if the Jaguar M had been adopted, and if the UK had retained a conventional aircraft carrier capability (by building the cancelled CVA-01), could the Jaguar M have been taken on by the Fleet Air Arm as well? The land-based Jaguar gave excellent service with the RAF.
As the FAA already had the Buccaneer II
it's unlikely that they would have adopted
it although it would have opened up some
interesting options for cross-deck operations
The F-4M Spey Phantoms were purchased in 1964, so by the time the Jaguar M was in prototype form Britain would have already something better in service. Not to mention the Admiralty had plans for improved avionics for the Buccaneer.
AFVG was also planned to be carrier-capable though, and may have been useful as both a Phantom and Buccaneer replacement.
A bit like the Buccaneer: a complete dog below 300 knots, but once you're up to speed and so long as you maintain energy, an absolute delight to throw around over 300 knots
France never pulled out of NATO, only out of NATO command. And they developed a work around after De Gauelle died. French forces were de facto under NATO command in forward deployment like Germany. It was revealed to the French public in the late 80s.
Indian Air Force still flies Jaguar. IAF absolutely loves it. Recently Hindustan Aeronautics came up with Jaguar Max upgrade package that includes a large area display and Israeli AESA radar to name a few. However Jaguar's service days with IAF are numbered.
Can't think of a worse choice for carrier work, it might of took off in a heavy sea with the pointy end pointing up, I doubt it could have stopped falling towards the deck if it had to go around.
Little engines, little wings, I love the Jag for what it could do, but there was lots it couldn't do.
I heard that the earth is round so to help it take off!
It made hundreds of landings and take-offs, both clean and loaded, and never crashed. It is right there on the video you just watched. What you wrote make no sense.
@@magoid The Test Pilots who flew the Carrier Trials absolutely slated it in the test reports. That's why it was canned!!!
It might sound ironic to settle for a single engine design at first but if you judge that you cannot land at sea on a single engine, it's still preferable to only have a single engine since 2 engines doubles the risk of failure (a risk which which infamously materialized with the Yak-38).
My 2 first ever models, a jaguar and a Mirage F1
Excellent choice. In an alternative universe. The Anglo French project would be the Mirage F1 but powered by a Rolls Royce Spey turbofan as fitted to the F4K/M Phantoms.
Pairing the F-8 with the A-7:
😃 parts commonality!
😑 all your eggs in one basket
Another factor not mentioned was that, since France had a strong nationalistic push to go "only French" for their military, the Jaguar was seen in disfavor as it was a cooperative effort with the British. The Super Etendard was pitched as a "completely French" aircraft, built solely in France, by the French and for the French.
In fact, almost 40% of the Super Etendard was of foreign manufacture, with all the parts being shipped in and assembled by Dassault. This was hardly any less than the Jaguar M, which had much better performance in terms of speed, range, maneuverability, and payload capacity.
It's comical that the UK had land based catapults for testing carrier aircraft, and now due to cutbacks we don't even have catapults on the carriers anymore :P
Cutbacks have nothing to do with it. We haven't had catapults on carriers since the 1970s because we use VSTOL aircraft and catapults break down whereas ramps don't.
@@B-A-L The whole reason we went to VSTOL from Catapults was so we could use/build much cheaper carriers (using more expensive but less capable planes in the process). As a general rule CATOBAR > STOBAR > STOVL. This is why the USA use CATOBAR (and we did prior to cutbacks) and why China, Russia, etc have dreams of upgrading to CATOBAR in the future. It's also the reason why France use STOBAR and why China/India upgraded their STOVL carriers to STOBAR (and why we have repeatedly looked at upgrading our new carriers to CATOBAR or STOBAR but each time decided it was too expensive).
By the time the RAF retired the Jag it was an incredibly capable aircraft, just old.
It would be nice to get another aircraft like the Jaguar.
I wonder if a navalized version of the Mirage F1 would have made sense and was considered.
Probably a stupid question but the Jaguar has only been out of sevice for a decade or so??, What happens to all those Jags?, i could think of a country that'd love some fast ground strike aircraft that can take off from rough ground.
All the British ones were scrapped, despite the RAF having spent most of the 1990s using and abusing the Urgent Operational Requirements system to get them comprehensively upgraded...🙄
@@MrHws5mp No they weren't. Many, many remain in storage at Cosford
@@harryspeakup8452 , thought a lot had been used as ground training airframes?
@@harryspeakup8452 Oh that's interesting. Any idea how many, and how many have been (presumably) rendered unflyable by being used as instructional airframes?
@@MrHws5mp Butt load of them at Cosford, most are GR 1A's in RAF Germany Squadron Markings that haven't flown in nearly 40 years. The GR 3A's they have last flew in 2007 and have not had their engines run since 2016. GR 3's were almost life ex on airframe life when the aircraft was canned.
at the time Marine Nationale could have opted for the naval carrier borne A-6F Intruder (Block II) maritime multi role ground attack fighter . . . although it didn't have any internal cannon, but a provision was there to arm the A-6F with an internal cannon should it be necessary . . .
Fascinating. I learnt something new today.
The wings were quite small for carrier aircraft.
Hmm, interesting how a jet with those small wings could safely land on a pretty short deck. Not to mention how it would land with a payload. The Jaguar was a very good low altitude attack aircraft for it's time (at least before the Tornado) but that was because it's smaller wings made it faster on the deck. I mean it is not a deltawing but still a lot of wingload. If they would have made a version with a wider wing and a lower max speed, that would have probably made it better suited for carrier ops, not to mention more agile...
High wing loading was one of the issues with operating this thing off a ship (plus the use of Spoilers for low speed roll control). A bigger wing would have made the aircraft better, but the extra drag would have made it very subsonic.
The indian Airforce still uses jaguars for maritime strike role.
They are called the Jaguar IM
First thing I thought was "Hey, it's only got one engine!"
Interesting counterfactual scenario: in 1982, an Argentine Jaguar-M squadron, based at Port Stanley, has multiple roles: launching Exocets, bombing/strafing smaller vessels, intercepting Harriers, and ground attack/CAS after British landings. Could have made a big difference - given that in the real world, Super Etendards and Skyhawks based on the mainland made the war, in the words of one UK general "a close run thing".
@*Uncle Joe* Not at all; in fact, the real world Argentine Skyhawk force, wielding "dumb bombs" and home-brewed retarders, were arguably a bigger problem for the Brits than the Exocet (not many of which were actually available or acquired by Argentina anyway). As an aside, Joe, I recall a RAN staff officer commenting, just after the Falklands War, that had Argentina had the combined assets of the ADF, it might well have defeated that particular British task force (although of course, that was probably not going to be the end of the matter).
Frankly I could see the British buying this to serve alongside the Hawker-Siddeley HS.1197 Buccaneer as RN carrier strike aircraft
Why would they buy it ? They had their own Jaguars and would have adopted the design.
more importantly, there's only so much space on a carrier and how would a Jag M have been a better use of that space than an additional Buccaneer S.3?
@@harryspeakup8452 I guess you nailed it.
Simple the Buccaneer S.3 requires 2 crew whereas the Jaguar only needs 1
Excellent! Fascinating. TFP.
The Jaguar was a vastly more capable jet than the Super Etendard, with higher top speed, longer range, and nearly double the the payload. Even accounting for slight performance losses due to added weight from the carrier adaptations, the Jaguar M seems like it would've been a huge upgrade for the French Navy.
It’s a real shame, as the Jaguar was a real beauty. I especially liked the look of the radar equipped Indian variants. It’s sad the way the defence industry fought amongst themselves so much in that 50s-70s period of amalgamation. Some great aircraft manufacturers were lost, despite having strong products.
May have been cheaper than re-engining the MD Phantom for the British…
Jaguar was strike and therefore
comparable to the Buccaneer
whereas it was the Crusader that
could have potentially have been
a Phantom alternative
Solid content
dunno, it was pretty rough on the yanks, too.
i wouldn't have wanted to be on the deck of the forrestal in '67.
a terrible accident and some very brave fire crews aboard that ship. 😔
Would a navalised Mirage F-1M not have been better than the Jaguar M? More power, better handling and could have replaced both the F-5 and the Entendard over time.
Absolutely! And you could make it Multirole - Using it as Fighter, Interceptor and Bomber.
It doesn't make sense though, with Dassault owning Bréguet the company's in a win-win situation, they're selling whatever the French navy is buying? There's more to the story than that je pense..
No, it;s a well-documented tale. For Dassault, Breguet was the enemy and they bought it in order to eliminate their domestic-market competitor
Marcel Dassault had a huge ego. The Jaguar was a plane he had no role in designing.
Yes there is!!! The Jaguar M got slated by the guys testing it!!! It was a complete dog when trying to get it on the boat and that was what killed it.
Never see much on the Jag was it mostly used as close air surport? Did it ever get any dog fights?
They remind me of a trainer for the F104. Sleek with wings that look too small
A great video. These French flying machines are absolutely magnifique and beautiful. The Jaguar seems like a lighter version of the Aardvark. Did it have a comparable terrain following radar suite?
I think the only Jaguars with radar were Indian anti-ship Jags
@@chrismartin3197 Correct, all european Jaguars only had stuff like FLIR.
@@chrismartin3197 Thank you.
French Jaguar As had a very basic avionics fit. British Jaguar Es and export Jaguar Internationals had a much better fit, with an inertial nav/attack system and a Laser Rangefinder/Marked Target Seeker. The Indian Jaguar Ms had an Agave radar (same as the Super Etendard, ironically enough) so that they could find ships and fire Sea Eagle missiles at them. This wasn't a terrain-following radar like you got in the F-111 or Tornado though.
@@MrHws5mp India wanted an airborne anti-ship capability. The Exocet+Agave combination was proven and cheapest to adopt.
As far as I am aware, the Super Etendard was transonic when fully loaded and all types of Jaguar were supersonic.. so they chose a less capable aircraft
Jaguars had a very short combat range so the use of supersonic speeds on combat missions would have been unlikely considering deployment at sea meant carrying extra weight (drop tanks meant less armaments carried so less mission capacity). Etendards have a bigger wing area and Radar. Jaguars were in essence an excellent battlefield strike aircraft but too compromised for carrier strike. Hence the British didn't pursue the 'Sea' variant and preferred their Buccaneers.
@@dcanmore They would have only gone supersonic over target, just like the land based version. I would have suspected that fuel tanks would be carried on most operations, as they would only need one or two weapons for the task. One tank under the fuselage with one weapon under each wing, or - most likely - one weapon under the fuselage and fuel tanks on the wing pylon. The Super Etendard only carried one Exocet.
Getting a Jaguar M on to the deck of a Carrier was a nightmare!!! The Test Pilots reports from the Carrier trials absolutely slated the aircraft.
I wonder if it could have been purchased by the Indian Navy or not? If yes then a license would have been acquire to make them at Hindustan Aeronautics just like how they are able to produce Russian combat aircraft under license
The unique position of the company making the plane not wanting it to be sold, ladies and gentlemen I give you, the French!
A great potential.....apart from the fact it was embarrassingly underpowered when tooled up....
Wow I never knew this maritime history of the Jag
A variant of the Mirage F1 would have been interesting.
I was hoping that the yellow citroën would be blown across the airfield by the jet blast top gear style
You mean the tin snail?
@@owen368 the 2CV
@@randyhavard6084 Yep that the nickname for a 2CV tin snail seems very apt to me.
There is a joke in the Indian airforce that jaguar only takes off because of Earth's curvature, still they love it tho. Bizarre that the French wanted a carrier plane out of it.
Ed, sounds like you’ve got a little goose green caught in your throat there, mate.
Interesting stuff.
Thanks
The first few images are from Hr Ms Karel Doorman (former HMS Venerable) Dutch Marines.
Would have been interesting how a Jaguar M would have fared at Top Gun. I mean already the Land based jag performed brilliantly at Red Flag.
My favourite fighter jets in the 80s
It would have served Dassault right if the French Navy had cancelled the Jaguar... and bought the Corsair!
They had a very serious look at the Skyhawk, even persuading two US test pilots who were on a promotional tour with hte aircraft in Europe to fly on and off one of the French carriers to prove it was possible. The Yanks were a bit nervous of the 'tiny' deck, being used to huge USN carriers!
It couldn't be sucessful as a carrier aircraft. Reason is it was designed from scratch as a heavy wing loaded attack aircraft for low altitude missions. This is when you want a heavy wing loaded attack aircraft and not a kite. Heavy wing loaded aircrafts tends to make tricky carrier aircrafts dur to high approach speed and overall safety margins around the boat.
In a typical ' *sign of the times* ' ........... For a couple of decades now, nothing flies in or out of Bedford Airfield which is a giant car park for new, mostly imported, cars waiting despatch to dealerships.
has there been any post war jets that remained on or under budget over their lifetime?
i dread to think what that wouldve been like with an engine out! better than the f35 but not much lol
Well done on awesome vid👍very interesting history n not well known part of history👍any nation going for Skyhawk not bad jet for its size but lack decent radar compare to land base jets. But after Skyhawk was F18A too big of jet for Majestic aircraft carriers but would have interesting to Jaguar M offer to RAN if French did go with Jaguar M.
Jaguar elegantly solved this dilemma : no radar onboard !
Did a bunch of Med cruises in the late 60s to mid 70s, crossdecked wirh the Ark Royal and saw Buccaneers, Jaguars, Rolls Royce Spey F4s, a quite different bird other than the airframe from US versions, oh and Bears, Badgers, Soviet frigates and hairy Soviet butts!!!! PS the buccaneers and jaguars were'nt shipboard they were land based and would over fly the carrier and put on airshows for us
Wow, awsome video. What a waste of a great aircraft with so much untapped potential. The Jag should have been Europe's Hornet. Grab a few squadrons of these sea jags, pair it with the navalized Flanker. That's a very capable, hi-lo fighter group for countries like India.
Did the Indian navy use this variant?
Correct me uf im wrong but i thought the CVN-65 "Enterprise" was part of the "Nimitz" class...if im wrong i will be the first to put my hands up and admit im wrong.
Nope. Enterprise was a singleton. Not part of the Nimitz class
No, it was the lead ship of a 5 ship class of ships of which only the Enterprise was built.
@@MattVF thanks for the correction...so was there supposed to be an 'enterprise' class of ship?
@@neiloflongbeck5705 thank you for the correction,much appreciate it.👍
@@damien5748 I think it was kinda sorta an experiment - first nuclear carrier. But yeah, it was also going to be the first of a class. I guess lessons learnt building her led them in another direction. Not sure.
Let's combine the Jaguar M with the Indian DARIN III Upgrade.
The Super Etendard is a fine aircraft. However I do believe that the Sepecat Jaguar would have had more potential. However it was an orphan and Dassault was never going to nurture it the way it deserved.
The Super Etendard could do very little that an A4 Skyhawk couldn't, and at a much higher cost with no economy of scale whatsoever!
As to the Jaguar, AFAIK it is still in service with the Indian Navy in the (ground-based) maritime attack role, with a radar fitted in its nose and AShCM's under its wings.
@@DanielLLevy indeed but there's very good reasons to buy domestic.