Lightning Jets

Gfhug · Post by **Gfhug** » Wed May 20, 2015 5:42 pm

It would be good to see an e Type vs a Lightning a la Veyron vs Typhoon that Top Gear did.
Not that there are any Frightenings flying anymore, and it never had the manoeuvreability of the modern computer controlled fighters.
But isn't there a Lightning they fire up to almost rotate speed at Bruntingthorpe? Who's up for the challenge?

Stuart Exelby · Post by **Stuart Exelby** » Wed May 20, 2015 6:44 pm

The Lightning photo's are from Bruntingthorpe - see : http://www.lightnings.org.uk/ and

and

You're right, the CAA won't allow Lightnings a certificate of airworthiness - so they are restricted to ground running - there was also one (a T2 trainer, I think) doing the same at Cranfield. In fairness, I have heard it said that there were more at the bottom of the North Sea than there are on Blighty - given their legendary reliability.

Even the ones in South Africa (that you could fly in) are now grounded following a crash which revealed some issues I think with maintenance regimes.

But the ones at Brunty are fantastic to see, hear and feel - and as your hearing starts to come back after she disappears off down the runway on reheat (the Lightning, not the E-Type!) all you can hear are all the car alarms going off in the car park!

wol916 · Post by **wol916** » Wed May 20, 2015 7:17 pm

There is one buried in my great uncles vegetable patch, might take a bit of digging out though

Post by **1954Etype** » Wed May 20, 2015 7:18 pm

I was working for BAC in the Middle East in the 70s on the Lightning contract. Flew the simulator (and landed it!). Watching night flying was incredible when they invoked re-heat in a clear night sky. Amazing aircraft. Worked on the Battle of Britain committee in 73 when l was in the RAF and we had a Lightning display on Press day. Standing on the side of the runway watching one do a vertical climb was a sight and sound l will never forget.

Gfhug · Post by **Gfhug** » Wed May 20, 2015 7:29 pm

1954Etype wrote: Flew the simulator (and landed it!)

On the older sims they always used to reckon no pilot could ever land them only the simulator technicians.

And watching a Spitfire do engine runs at midnight, they really do spit fire.
Or standing next to the runway when Concorde switched on reheat.... The noise and your body literally vibrating.
Those were the days, or as they say elsewhere WIWOL

Durango2k · Post by **Durango2k** » Wed May 20, 2015 7:48 pm

A friend of mine kinda "owns one". He works on it for years now, the plane being in the US.

He invited me to work on it, doing electrics- but I would have to pay the flight my own which is out of order, so.....

It?s an XS422:

http://www.lightning422supporters.co.uk ... kstory.htm

Carsten

wol916 · Post by **wol916** » Wed May 20, 2015 9:22 pm

Found the link with pictures of said vegetable patch.
I still have a piece of F53 on the windowsill at home.

http://laituk.org/Lightning%20F53%2053-690.htm

christopher storey · Post by **christopher storey** » Thu May 21, 2015 8:08 am

My son went to Capetown and had an hour in the Thunder City Lightning only a few weeks before its very tragic demise . The accident report makes very sobering reading , with the ejector seats non-operational, and many fuel related defects which led to the burn through of the side of the jet pipe and the loss of all the hydraulics

PeterCrespin · Post by **PeterCrespin** » Thu May 21, 2015 3:08 pm

As kids we used to go camping in Anglesey and more than once we used the site at Rhosneigr, which was between the beach and the end of RAF Valley's main runway. We got free displays from Red Arrows aerobatic training in the Folland Gnat, regular helicopter sorties, Lightnings going out on training and of course the huge Vulcan bombers - which looked as if they would belly-flop on our tent. Didn't realise we were watching history and nowadays you probably can't get within miles of the place.

But absolutely nothing matched working in Portakabins at the end of RAF Mildenhall's runway, when the SR71 spooled up first one engine, then the other and then both. That final ear-splitting cacophony was at least brief, because it accelerated so fast down the runway that after a few seconds it was a speck in the distant sky, climing to the borders of space like a black dart.

If you were on the phone to a client when the ruckus started, you just had to drop the call and ring back. Which was handy, because I just wanted to look out of the window anyway!

SEJohnson95 · Post by **SEJohnson95** » Fri May 22, 2015 8:26 am

http://oppositelock.kinja.com/favorite- ... 1079127041

One of my favourite stories about the SR-71 :D

Simon P · Post by **Simon P** » Fri May 22, 2015 9:51 am

Funnily enough, one of my favourites too! :D I'm also fortunate enough to own two copies of the (superb) book it comes from - Sled Driver - on which as the article says prices have been rising faster than E-type tool kits!

Ian Howe · Post by **Ian Howe** » Sat May 23, 2015 9:15 pm

Good fun to fly

Limited room inside like a flat floor.

Ian

Moeregaard · Post by **Moeregaard** » Sun May 24, 2015 4:05 am

From what I've read, the Lightning's time-to-climb rivals the more contemporary F-15's, which is really impressive. When I worked at the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) at Barking Sands, Hawaii, the USAF guys would fly over in groups of three from Hickham, grab some lunch, and head back to Oahu. Two would depart normally, while the third would always perform a "Viking Departure," climbing out vertically before rolling out at some significant altitude. As impressive as that was, I wish I'd been around early enough and in the right place to have see the Lightning do the same. I was also at Edwards AFB, in 1999, when NASA was conducting the last few SR-71 flights. Nothing turns fuel into noise like the SR-71. Now, back to E-Types...

Ian Howe · Post by **Ian Howe** » Sun May 24, 2015 10:34 am

Hi

I was fortunate to also fly the F-15 and then the Tornado - the F15 was something else - a great air superiority fighter.

Back to E Types now.

Ian

Gfhug · Post by **Gfhug** » Sun May 24, 2015 10:41 am

Ian, is that stick the right way round? Looks back to front to me.
I have/had one somewhere, and always thought it went the other way.

Geoff

Stuart Exelby · Post by **Stuart Exelby** » Sun May 24, 2015 11:41 am

Gfhug wrote:Ian, is that stick the right way round? Looks back to front to me.
I have/had one somewhere, and always thought it went the other way.

Geoff

I think you are right - even the best Lightning pilot will struggle to control it backwards!

My experience only extends to sitting on the edge of the taxi-way when a Lightning took off from Coningsby's main runway to practice for HMQ's Silver Jubilee celebrations (in the days when we had a few more aeroplanes than we have now!) and being verrryyy impressed when the Lightning took off and stood on its tail over the runway, being out of sight (if not earshot) in seconds. Awesome, even in the late 70's - so even more impressive perhaps when you consider she first flew almost twenty years before the F15.....

Great stories abound - but wasn't there one where a U2 pilot, thinking he was safe at around 88,000 feet, was surprised to see a Lightning overtaking him from above? Well over its official height ceiling, but, just to prove a point!

As someone said, back to E-Types......

Simon P · Post by **Simon P** » Sun May 24, 2015 3:47 pm

My favourite is the one about the (notoriously marginal on fuel) Lightning that managed to plug into an air-to-air tanker just in time, as evidenced by the fact that it then uplifted more than a Lightning's total fuel capacity - i.e. the full fuel load plus the fuel needed to keep it in the air whilst refuelling :D

Great planes though. By coincidence I encountered one in a farmer's yard on Thursday. Looking very sorry for itself and effectively worthless - but then again I couldn't help but feel that people once viewed knackered E-types as being similarly valueless....

Gfhug · Post by **Gfhug** » Mon May 25, 2015 8:14 am

Do you get the feeling that 'Sir' has decided the naughty boys caught whispering about something other than E Types have been banished to the back of the class?

I wouldn't mind, but some of the 'glamour' shots he trawls the internet for show ladies (?) I wouldn't even allow to wash my car never mind sitting behind the steering wheel

Oops, get the feeling I may be required to stay after skule and write out one hundred lines.
Suggestions as to what those lines will read? 8)

Stuart Exelby · Post by **Stuart Exelby** » Mon May 25, 2015 10:25 am

Looks like only the one Lightning ran yesterday.....

But the car alarms still object.......

And for those that hadn't already seen it, here is the last flight of a HP Victor, at one of the Cold War jets days at Brunty a few years back - the one which caused, as you might imagine, all the consternation....

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Lightning Jets

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