BAC Jet Provost
The JP
“Where a generation of RAF pilots first flew a jet.”
BAC · military
The Jet Provost took the piston Provost trainer and gave it a Viper engine, a tricycle undercarriage and side-by-side seats, so the instructor could sit next to the student instead of behind. The RAF trained on it for nearly 40 years, from 1955 to 1993. Dozens survive on the civil register in Britain and America, and many are still flown by the people who learned on them.
The Jet Provost's side-by-side cockpit was the point: an instructor could watch a student's hands and eyes, which is why the RAF kept it as its basic jet trainer for four decades.
Wide side-by-side canopy, straight wing with tip tanks, and intakes low on each side of the nose. The T.5 has a pressurised, more rounded canopy; the Strikemaster is the same shape with hardpoints under the wings.
One might be overhead right now.
Bogey turns the The JP from a dot in the sky into a card in your logbook.
