The experimental breakup of liquid jets subjected to a sinusoidal perturbation is investigated in the Rayleigh and first wind-induced regimes. Stroboscopic illumination of the jet and laser photometry method are used. The ability of linear spatial and temporal theories to describe certain aspects of the phenomenon is stressed. A review of data in the literature shows that the limited experimental windows investigated so far do not allow definite conclusions to be drawn. Our results, obtained over a wide range of fluid viscosity and jet velocity values, show that the linear theory of Sterling and Sleicher accurately predicts the variation in breakup length with jet velocity. The exponential character of the initial growth of a monochromatic perturbation along the jet is also described quantitatively. These results were obtained by carefully controlling the initial jet surface perturbation. It is also shown that transient surface tension and jet contraction have to be taken into account to analyze the experimental results.

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