RAF Cosford Nightshoot

Aviation PhotographyCurrent MilitaryNightshootsFast JetEx-MilitaryJets
Written By Jack Goward

Another month and another shoot, doing well this year! Thursday 4th April and it was an earlier start to make the trip up to RAF Cosford in Shropshire for the Threshold Aero Nightshoot taking place later that evening. RAF Cosford is home to one of the branches of the RAF Museum, with a unique collection of aircraft, so it would’ve been rude not to have a browse round before getting prepped for the main event. In the future I may post some content around museum visits, we’ll see how we go…

Similar to the Navy Wings Nightshoot at RNAS Yeovilton, the military events usually require a bit of ID checking and a good brief when you get onto the active airfield. The airfield itself at Cosford is separate to the RAF Museum campus, so as the evening approached I headed down to the main gate with the obligatory hi-vis (needed for nightshoots) and got checked-in.

The active military side of RAF Cosford is a pretty special place these days. The RAF carry out a lot of phase-2 training at the campus for the majority of their engineering and technician based roles, which means aircraft are needed! Hidden away in the hangers are a mass of ex-RAF Hawks, Tornados (various types), Harriers and famously the mighty Sepecat Jaguars – so with that in mind, onto the shoot!

The team at involved in providing the aircraft for this event did an amazing job with the variety they managed to get prepared for the evening. Bear in mind, as mentioned above due to the nature of the training carried out here a lot of these airframes, more often than not, are in bits in the hangers.

It was a fairly large flightline, so I kept it simple and made my way from right to left, starting with two Harriers – Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.3 ‘XZ991’ & Sea Harrier FA.2 ‘ZH796’. I revisted these later in the evening after nightfall which you can see later in the post!

Then it was on to the Jaguars! There were five airframes out to photograph – four situated on the taxiway with a further jet placed in a mock ‘HAS’ (Hardened Aircraft Shelter) which looked cool. I spent plenty of time pointing the camera at these, including an initial pass before the light went, then backtracking once nightfall came. These jets each have a fascinating history – a snippet of which I’ve captured below the first set of images.

  • SEPECAT Jaguar T.4 ‘XX835’ – First flew 14th Feb 1975. Built as a T.2 serving on 226 OCU (Operational Conversion Unit) before 1986 when it was loaned to the RAE (Royal Aircraft Establishment) and upgraded to a T.2B. In 1995 835 was returned to the RAF with 54 Sqn, going on to serve with 6 and 41 Sqns. In 1989 it was upgraded to a T.4, before returning to 6 Sqn until retirement in May 2007. 835 was on of the last 3 Jaguars flown into RAF Cosford in July 2007 and is now used for ground instructional use.

  • SEPECAT Jaguar T2.A ‘XX141’ – First flew in January 1974, converted to a T2.A in 1985. 141 retired to RAF Cranwell  for ground instructional use in 1999 (I actually saw this at Cranwell back in 2010). April 2013 saw the airframe move to RAF Cosford where it is continues to be used for ground instructional training.

  • SEPECAT Jaguar T2 ‘ZB615’ – The last British Jaguar built, 615 first flew on 23rd September 1982, serving as a trials aircraft for its entire service time. Initially flying with the RAE, in 1994 the aircraft switched to the classic ‘raspberry ripple’ colour scheme of the Empire Test Pilots School (ETPS) flying out of MOD Boscombe Down. 615 was retired in November 2005, moving to RAF Cranwell in November 2009 before joining the other Cosford Jaguars.

  • SEPECAT Jaguar GR.1 ‘XX976’ – First flown January 13th 1976 before delivery to 31 Sqn, RAF Shawbury. 976 later moved on to 17 Sqn, RAFG Bruggen. By 1985 this airframe was retired to storage at Shawbury before moving to RAF Halton no less (my old home town!) in 1986 with No.1 SoTT (School of Technical Training). 10 years later 976 moved to RAF Cosford as part of then DSAE (Defence School of Aeronautical Engineering), now DCTT – Defence College of Technical Training. In 2023 the airframe was moved to outside storage, where sadly it will likely end up being disposed of in the future.

  •  SEPECAT Jaguar GR.3A ‘XX725’ – First flew 8th May 1974, entering service with 226 OCU in the June. 725 was sold to the Indian Air Force before returning to the RAF in April 1984, serving with the SAOEU (Strike Attach Operational Evaluation Unit), then 54 Sqn at RAF Coltishall. This jet saw active service in Operation Granby, the liberation of Kuwait before later serving with 41 Sqn, 54 Sqn and 6 Sqn. On 2nd July 2007 725 retired to RAF Cosford, initially used for live taxiing before becoming a ground instructional trainer.

Moving further up flightline to one, or two, of the highlights of this shoot. Panavia Tornado F3.T ‘ZE340’ painted up in my all time favourite Squadron colours, 43 Sqn, sat next to Panavia Tornado GR1 ‘ZA320’ – this jet was painted up in 17 Squadron markings on the port side, and on the starboard side it was painted in 27 Squadron markings, coded ‘JG’ – nice touch I thought coding the jet after me…

Wrapping up the line-up of aircraft was a British Aerospace Hawk T.1A ‘XX335’ (208 Sqn markings) and Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.3 ‘XZ991’. The Hawk was placed in front of one of the hanger doors with a tug attached to it – nice to shoot something a bit different!

One of the fun things with the slightly larger shoots such as this event, is the placement of the lighting on the aircraft. During a fairly intense shower, the team backlit one of the Jaguars and it looked epic! Towards the end of the evening, there were also some light painting shenanigans going on with the Sea Harrier, just about caught the right moment!

I’ve been to a few of the Threshold Aero events now, pleased to say they’ve all been great but this one was a slight notch above the rest for me. Getting to re-live some of my childhood looking at the frontline jets from back at that time was a real treat. The 43 Sqn Tornado was the cherry on the cake, last time I saw a 43 Sqn jet in the air was spotting at Boscombe Down when they operated a Tornado F2 as a testbed in 43 Sqn markings – that was in 2009…

Huge thanks to all involved at DCTT RAF Cosford and of course Threshold Aero for putting on another quality evening of photography!

As always here’s some useful links relating to this post!

 Until next time…

Jack

Jack Goward
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TCAHS Nightshoot One