Originally Posted by
SpringHeeledJack
I happened upon a science documentary last night and Professor Brian Cox took a ride in one of the Lightnings up to 50,000ft plus to see the atmosphere etc etc. The Documentary was filmed in 2010, so all was still good with Mike Beachyhead and his wonderful stable of fast jets.
The program was first shown on TV in 2010 IIRC, it was however filmed in 2009, as Cox flew in ZU-BEX (ex-XS451) which was the T.5 that crashed in Nov 2009.
I have a vague recollection that Ian Black (the last pilot to qualify to fly the Lightning in the RAF) was flying the other T.5 which was used (the black ex-XS452 which he'd flown many times from Binbrook) to film the external inflight shots from, for the BBC filming sequence.