Royal Artillery Portable Photographic Interpretation Facility (PPIF) Land Rover 25 FG 73: a Series IIA 109 with a tall box body carried forward into a square, mesh-fronted Luton over the cab and equipment boxes on the roof, attached to the Midge drone sections of Observation Post batteries to process the drones' reconnaissance film.
BASE VEHICLESeries II 109″BUILT BYRover Company / British Leyland, Solihull (Series IIA/III 109 chassis) with specialist box bodyIN SERVICE1968–75OPERATED INUnited Kingdom, GermanyPRODUCTIONunknownLAYOUT4 wheels · 109″
The record
The Canadair CL-89 Midge was the British Army's first battlefield reconnaissance drone, a rocket-launched, parachute-recovered aircraft carrying cameras and sensors that flew a pre-programmed course over the enemy and returned to its launch unit. Each Royal Artillery Observation Post battery's drone section needed to process and read the film within minutes of recovery, and for that the Army built a small number of Portable Photographic Interpretation Facility (PPIF) bodies on the Series IIA 109-inch chassis.
25 FG 73 shows the arrangement: the tall, square-cornered box body of the period ambulance and command-vehicle family, extended forward over the cab into a big Luton with a mesh-fronted vent panel, extra ventilation and equipment boxes on the roof for the darkroom and viewing kit inside, a spare wheel on the bonnet and a matching trailer behind. The registry model takes the ambulance body, drops its medical markings and beacon, and adds the Luton, roof boxes and plate as photographed; the trailer is not modelled.
Research status: draft — identification, dates or figures could not all be pinned down; the summary says what is unresolved.
Specification
MANUFACTURERRover Company / British Leyland, Solihull (Series IIA/III 109 chassis) with specialist box body
MODIFIER / COACHBUILDERBritish Army / Royal Artillery (PPIF fit)
MANUFACTUREDMidge drone service period (approximate)
ENGINERover 2.25 L petrol inline-four (standard for the Army's 109 box bodies; not stated in the source)
FITTINGSBox body with forward Luton and mesh vent panel, roof equipment boxes, bonnet spare, PPIF trailer (not modelled)
RECORD KINDNamed model
MODEL LINESeries IIA
WHEELS4
NOMINAL WHEELBASE109″
CATEGORYMilitary · UK
Catalogue fields describe the vehicle's structure and body as this registry records it. They are not certified factory measurements, and no performance figures are published here.
Variants & colours
Factory colours
Deep Bronze Green
NATO Green (IRR)
Codes on hover. Hex values are representative approximations of period paint unless a source states a measured value.
