U. K. Jaguar ACT

In the U. K., the Royal Aircraft Establishment began an effort ori­ented to producing a CCV testbed in 1977. For this purpose, an Anglo – French Jaguar strike fighter was modified by British Aerospace (BAe) to prove the feasibility of active control technology. Known as the Jaguar Active Control Technology (ACT), the aircraft’s mechanical flight control system was entirely removed and replaced with a quad-redundant digital fly-by-wire control system that used electrical channels to relay instructions to the flight control surfaces. The initial flight of the Jaguar ACT with the digital FBW system was in October 1981. As with the CCV F-104G, ballast was added to the aft fuselage to move the center of gravity aft and destabilize the aircraft. In 1984, the Jaguar ACT was fitted with rounded oversized leading-edge strakes to move the center of lift of the aircraft forward, further contributing to pitch instability. It first flew in this configuration in March 1984. Marconi developed the Jaguar ACT flight control system. It included an optically coupled data transmission link that was essentially similar to the one that they had developed for the U. S. Air Force YC-14 program (an interesting example of the rapid proliferation of advanced aerspace technology between nations).[1218]

Flight-testing began in 1981, with the test program ending in 1984 after 96 flights.[1219]