E.E. LIGHTNINGS. BEAUTIFUL BEASTS.

[Phil Perry]

Lightnings of 19, 111, 56 and 92 Squadrons in formation.

 

 

A little Air to Air sustenance from a friendly Victor tanker. . .

 

 

I read a book written by a serving Lightning pilot, based at an RAF station near to Aberdeen. on the East coast of Scotland. ( Obviously AFTER he had left the service ! ) Their main job was the interception of curious Russian 'Bear' aircraft which were prodding the UK defences. This was often a daily occurrence in all weathers. He mentioned that it was all done 'Politely' and although there was never any radio comms between them, that they regularly exchanged photography and it was all friendly 'Thumbs up' stuff. . .Bit of a game really. . .

 

He said that when the tanks were almost full, and the alpha increased to a certain level, in order to keep station with the tanker,. . .if he happened to push the throttle through the gate from Mil speed to Reheat,. . .the fuel would be burned faster than the tanker pump could deliver it. . . .( Or something like that. . .I read the book 20 years ago ! )

 

 

[Oscar]

Probably legend, but... a story goes that when the USAF made the first flight of a Blackbird into the UK, it landed, and shortly afterwards the UK Station Commander came over to the pilot to express his admiration for the thing. The Blackbird pilot said something on the lines of: 'Nothing can get near us', whereupon the UK Station Commander handed him a photo of himself at the controls, high over the UK... taken by a Lightning that had intercepted the Blackbird at the very top of a 'ballistic' climb where the Lightning's engines had flamed out due to excessive height but he still got the photo..

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Probably legend, but... a story goes that when the USAF made the first flight of a Blackbird into the UK, it landed, and shortly afterwards the UK Station Commander came over to the pilot to express his admiration for the thing. The Blackbird pilot said something on the lines of: 'Nothing can get near us', whereupon the UK Station Commander handed him a photo of himself at the controls, high over the UK... taken by a Lightning that had intercepted the Blackbird at the very top of a 'ballistic' climb where the Lightning's engines had flamed out due to excessive height but he still got the photo..

Nice Story Oscar. . .if true it would be a wonderful tale. . . .as you say,. . . possibly Legend. . . A friend of mine, a Flight Lieutenant now long retired from the RAF, mentioned a 'Flameout' incident in his lightning over the North Sea many years ago. Again, flying from an RAF station in Scotland. . .

 

Notwithstanding all his efforts, he could not restart either engine, and the reason he was retired from flying duties was that two of his vertebrae were irreparably damaged during the ejection and he finally retired as he was completely fed up with shuffling papers around his flying desk. . . . .You can ground the Pilot,. . but you can never take the Pilot out of the man.

 

 

[Oscar]

I presume - but don't have the technical knowledge to even know whether it's possible - that since the Lightning had climbed on a 'ballistic' - i.e. near vertical - flight path and had so much height, it would gain enough airspeed in a near vertical descent to re-start the engines?

 

 

[Deskpilot]

I had the privilege to service Lightning of 19, 23 and 74 Sqdns during my RAF career. I've heard the story of reaching the Blackbird before. Another note-worthy event is that only the Lightning chased and caught Concorde on its trans-Atlantic run.

 

Prior to being closed down, a Thunder City Lightning set a new climb to height record in South Africa. 1 minute 20 seconds(if memory serves me well) from stand-still to 30,000ft.

 

I still wear my sqdn badges occasionally.

 

in order, 19, 74, 23 and 47 sqdn of Transport Command (Blackburn Beverley's), my initial sqdn.

 

 

[Oscar]

As for climb performance... ( and I don't mean to hijack the thread!)..

 

McDonnell (as it was then) sent out an F-15 Eagle for a demo in Australia. It did an aerobatics display over Lake Burley Griffin, with our then Minister of Defence sitting in the back seat. As it happened, I worked with his daughter at the Australian National Library - situated on the foreshore of the lake - so we climbed onto the roof of the Library to watch it.

 

The demo pilot did several loops over the lake, the best display I have ever seen of managing pure power and drag controls to do them slowly - every one of them had a lower base height than us, only three stories above the ground - maybe 50 feet above the water. The F-15 was beyond awesome, there is no sufficient word.

 

When the F-15 left Canberra airport the following day, the Tower asked him to report when clear of the (upwind) threshold. Which he did, with the laconic addition of 'passing through 20,000 feet'.

 

Smartarse.

 

 

[cosmicray]

Lightnings fly past HMAS Melbourne in company with a RAN Skyhawk during exercise Bersatu Padu (complete unity) in 1970.

 

 

 

[derekliston]

I have seen a couple of F15s go vertical into a clear blue sky until they disappeared from view, but remember that the Lightning was doing that 50+ years ago. As kids in Scotland we used to watch them going after the Bears. They flew from RAF Leuchars.

 

 

[Deskpilot]

I wasn't with 74 Sqdn when they were in Singapore but was down the road at Seletar, servicing their radars. I was at Leuchars prior to going to Singa's. Funny enough, I never saw a Lightning flying around Singapore.

 

 

[Oscar]

I've never seen a Lightning in the flesh - even at Duxford (unless my memory is worse than I thought) but they have always reminded me strongly of a somewhat cynical comment made by an aero-engineer about the different philosophies of the Yanks and the Poms towards designing fighters.

 

The Yanks, he reckoned, get an armchair, a decent number of heavy weapons, arrange them on the hangar floor in logical positions and then say to the designers: 'now, make that lot fly'.

 

The Pom approach, he reckoned, was to draw up a specification and let the designers loose to do wondrous things. Around 2/3rds the way to finishing the prototype. someone would say: 'Um, what about a pilot?' whereupon someone from the design team would say 'we'll dig a hole somewhere up near the front and stuff in a stool, somewhow'.

 

Probably most unfair...but the guy in the back-seat of this F-15 looks as if he's waiting for the kettle to boil to make the coffee while they aerial re-fuel..

 

 

 

[kgwilson]

Another note-worthy event is that only the Lightning chased and caught Concorde on its trans-Atlantic run.

I think that the Concorde was the only aircraft capable of Mach 2 without afterburners.

 

 

[Oscar]

Concorde was a pussy. It has taken me years of research to discover all of the below, but it will put things into perspective..

 

Concorde's performance was primarily driven by the urgent wish of the British engineering team to design something that would get them far enough away in jig time from the daily influx of garlic eclairs delivered to the French design team. In that it was successful.

 

The Lightning performance was a result of the design team being subject to a 'disproportionate response' from the locals who were awakened at 0400 every morning by the Commer Knocker milk delivery truck to the design office. A basic requirement was a climb rate in excess of the muzzle velocity of an ex-WWII Bren gun owned by one of the locals...but in the end, required advanced pilot skills for the first 5,000 feet.

 

The Blackbird.... used engines scavenged from the Roswell alien craft and copied... burning hyper-nuclear ping-pong balls.. Afterburners? Ha.

 

THIS is an afterburner run..

 

 

OK, Phil, I apologise for completely hijacking your thread. It's a hot and dreary afternoon here in Oz..

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Concorde was a pussy. It has taken me years of research to discover all of the below, but it will put things into perspective..Concorde's performance was primarily driven by the urgent wish of the British engineering team to design something that would get them far enough away in jig time from the daily influx of garlic eclairs delivered to the French design team. In that it was successful.

 

The Lightning performance was a result of the design team being subject to a 'disproportionate response' from the locals who were awakened at 0400 every morning by the Commer Knocker milk delivery truck to the design office. A basic requirement was a climb rate in excess of the muzzle velocity of an ex-WWII Bren gun owned by one of the locals...but in the end, required advanced pilot skills for the first 5,000 feet.

 

The Blackbird.... used engines scavenged from the Roswell alien craft and copied... burning hyper-nuclear ping-pong balls.. Afterburners? Ha.

 

THIS is an afterburner run..

 

[ATTACH=full]52786[/ATTACH]

 

OK, Phil, I apologise for completely hijacking your thread. It's a hot and dreary afternoon here in Oz..

Noooooooo !. . . this is how GOOD threads are created from a poor one mate ! I AM annoyed about the thought of 'Hot and Dreary' though. . .it's currently Negative1.2 Deg. C here. . . .

 

 

[Deskpilot]

A proposed swing wing version of the Lightning, with a solid nose. Bl**dy ugly compared to those that actually existed

 

 

 

[Birdseye]

A proposed swing wing version of the Lightning, with a solid nose. Bl**dy ugly compared to those that actually existed[ATTACH]52788[/ATTACH]

Some indications of the future Tornado?

Regarding the previous post about armchair aircraft, from a quick sit in the two seater and a brief stint in the simulator, I don't recall the Lightning to be that tight in cockpit space, certainly nothing like the Gnat in that regard.

 

 

[derekliston]

Some indications of the future Tornado?Regarding the previous post about armchair aircraft, from a quick sit in the two seater and a brief stint in the simulator, I don't recall the Lightning to be that tight in cockpit space, certainly nothing like the Gnat in that regard.

Since it was in it’s day, the World’s fastest interceptor to height and with an original endurance of about 30minutes (I know later versions were better) I don’t suppose pilot comfort was high on the list of priorities!

 

 

[Oscar]

Some indications of the future Tornado?Regarding the previous post about armchair aircraft, from a quick sit in the two seater and a brief stint in the simulator, I don't recall the Lightning to be that tight in cockpit space, certainly nothing like the Gnat in that regard.

To fly a Gnat, was for so many years an enduring dream for me - something about it just hit the sweet spot. Strap it on and go play..

 

But it was apparently a very complicated aircraft, though it was designed for lower-tech manufacturing techniques than the top-line stuff. Amazingly - to those of us ( and I am guilty here) who long-regarded Indian manufacturing incapable of making anything more complicated than Royal Enfield motorcycles and a badly-executed clone of an Austin A40 for taxi duty - the Indians actually produced and very successfully flew Gnats for many years!.

 

And - to defend myself from charges of even FURTHER hijacking of this thread, W.E.W Petter who designed the Gnat also was one of the original designers of the Lightning!

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Gnats were used in earlier times by the Red Arrows team. I recall seeing them a couple of times at RAF Cosford, and once they did a display on the seafront at Llandudno in North Wales. . .

 

I have NOT spoken to any pilot who flew them so can't comment upon their flyability rating . . . Two of them collided head on during practice though. . . very sad. . . .

 

 

[Phil Perry]

To fly a Gnat, was for so many years an enduring dream for me - something about it just hit the sweet spot. Strap it on and go play..But it was apparently a very complicated aircraft, though it was designed for lower-tech manufacturing techniques than the top-line stuff. Amazingly - to those of us ( and I am guilty here) who long-regarded Indian manufacturing incapable of making anything more complicated than Royal Enfield motorcycles and a badly-executed clone of an Austin A40 for taxi duty - the Indians actually produced and very successfully flew Gnats for many years!.

 

And - to defend myself from charges of even FURTHER hijacking of this thread, W.E.W Petter who designed the Gnat also was one of the original designers of the Lightning!

'Hijack' all you like Soul Brother. . .all good grist. . . .

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Since it was in it’s day, the World’s fastest interceptor to height and with an original endurance of about 30minutes (I know later versions were better) I don’t suppose pilot comfort was high on the list of priorities!

That one from RAF Leuchars ( Scotland ) who suffered a complete flameout which resulted in an Ejection, , was NOT court martialled for running the aircraft out of fuel apparently. . .( Mentiioned this incident further up the thread )

 

 

[Birdseye]

Gnats were used in earlier times by the Red Arrows team. I recall seeing them a couple of times at RAF Cosford, and once they did a display on the seafront at Llandudno in North Wales. . .I have NOT spoken to any pilot who flew them so can't comment upon their flyability rating . . . Two of them collided head on during practice though. . . very sad. . . .

A friend and former work colleague was OC Standards at Valley; big lad. He had to trim the heels of his flying boots to fit in the Gnat.