AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 133 / 178

Plate 133 of 178 · Cold War · Radio-controlled jet target drone

GAF Jindivik Mk.104A

Mk.104A, painted as ZJ496, the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust Museum’s GAF Jindivik Mk.104A, Australian serial A92-901, one of the last production batch of Jindiviks built by the Government Aircraft Factories in Melbourne for British weapons trials, which flew 12 sorties before it was retired to the museum at Farnborough: Australia’s radio-controlled jet target drone, 20 ft 9 in in span, with one Viper turbojet fed by a dorsal intake above the nose, a cylindrical fuselage, a short, straight, constant-chord wing carrying long pods with drooping fins at the tips, a ventral fin under the tail and a long nose probe, shown standing level on its original three-wheeled take-off trolley with its landing skid part-extended: gloss red with a golden-yellow top band, yellow upper wings and tailplane, a black cheat line, intake lip and nose tip, Type D roundels on the rear fuselage and the upper wings, ‘ZJ 496’ ahead of the fuselage roundel and ‘A92 901’ on the fin above a red fin flash, rows of kill marks behind the intake, yellow and red wing-tip pods with black nose and tail cones and white fins, on an orange trolley, as repainted in 2024–25 (no photograph since the repaint shows the port side, so its markings mirror the starboard, and no photograph shows roundels under the wings, so none are painted there).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as ZJ496, the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust Museum’s GAF Jindivik Mk.104A, Australian serial A92-901, one of the last production batch of Jindiviks built by the Government Aircraft Factories in Melbourne for British weapons trials, which flew 12 sorties before it was retired to the museum at Farnborough: Australia’s radio-controlled jet target drone, 20 ft 9 in in span, with one Viper turbojet fed by a dorsal intake above the nose, a cylindrical fuselage, a short, straight, constant-chord wing carrying long pods with drooping fins at the tips, a ventral fin under the tail and a long nose probe, shown standing level on its original three-wheeled take-off trolley with its landing skid part-extended: gloss red with a golden-yellow top band, yellow upper wings and tailplane, a black cheat line, intake lip and nose tip, Type D roundels on the rear fuselage and the upper wings, ‘ZJ 496’ ahead of the fuselage roundel and ‘A92 901’ on the fin above a red fin flash, rows of kill marks behind the intake, yellow and red wing-tip pods with black nose and tail cones and white fins, on an orange trolley, as repainted in 2024–25 (no photograph since the repaint shows the port side, so its markings mirror the starboard, and no photograph shows roundels under the wings, so none are painted there). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (605 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Mk.104A modelled here.

History

The Jindivik

After the Second World War Britain and Australia set up a joint missile range at Woomera in South Australia, and the new guided weapons needed something fast and high to shoot at. In 1948 the Ministry of Supply issued specification E.7/48 for a jet-powered target that could fly a 15-minute sortie at 40,000 ft, and the Government Aircraft Factories at Fishermans Bend, Melbourne, took on the design. To try out its handling they first built a piloted version, the Pika, which flew in 1950. The unmanned Jindivik Mk 1, with an Armstrong Siddeley Adder turbojet, made its first radio-controlled flight on 28 August 1952.

The Jindivik is a simple, rugged machine: a cylindrical fuselage with the engine fed by an intake on top of the nose, a short straight wing and a conventional tail. It takes off from a three-wheeled trolley that steers itself down the runway and is left behind as the drone lifts off, and it lands on a sprung skid under its belly, guided by two controllers on the ground, one keeping it on the centreline and the other judging its height. From the Mk 2 onwards it had the Armstrong Siddeley (later Rolls-Royce) Viper, an engine designed for it as a short-life turbojet and later developed for the Jet Provost and other aircraft. Wing-tip pods carried flares, radar enhancers and miss-distance equipment, and it could tow targets on long cables behind it.

Jindiviks were flown at Woomera and, from around 1960, from Llanbedr on the Welsh coast over the Aberporth range, where they were the targets for Bloodhound, Thunderbird, Seaslug and other British missiles. Sweden and the US Navy bought them too. Some 502 were built by 1986, the Mk 4A being the last production version, and the line was briefly reopened in 1997 to build 15 more for Britain. Because trial missiles were usually meant to pass close by rather than hit, a Jindivik could survive many sorties. Australian service ended in the late 1990s, and the last British Jindivik flew from Llanbedr in 2003.

This airframe

Jindivik Mk.104A ZJ496

ZJ496The airframe modelled

ZJ496 is a Mk.104A, the British-specification Mk 4A that was the last production version of the Jindivik, and also carries its Australian serial, A92-901. It flew 12 sorties on the British ranges before it was retired to the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust Museum, where it stands on its original take-off trolley. The model shows it as repainted in 2024–25: gloss red with a golden-yellow top band, yellow upper wings and tailplane, a black cheat line and intake lip, Type D roundels on the rear fuselage and upper wings, ‘ZJ 496’ ahead of the fuselage roundel, ‘A92 901’ on the fin, kill marks behind the intake and yellow and red wing-tip pods. No photograph since the repaint shows the port side, so its markings mirror the starboard.

See it at Farnborough Air Sciences Trust Museum

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Jindivik in 13 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 178 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.