Indeed, stories like that are obviously of interest but also the simple day-to-day operations are always worth recalling too. For the typical reader who has probably never flown an aircraft of any description, it's always fascinating to read about hands-on stuff.
At present I haven't got any real specifics for the text. I don't want to do the usual potted history as it's been done too many times before, but of course I'm obliged to trace the history of the aircraft in some form. I'll probably try to stick to the bare bones of the Lightning's development and operational history and build on that with first-hand accounts so that the book's a better read. Think everyone would agree that simple plodding through the same history yet again wouldn't be much fun?!
As for photos, I've got plenty of space for pretty-much as many images as I can find which is good news. The bad news is that so many of the shots that have been around for years seem to have disappeared now. There's certainly lots of stuff floating around on the internet but most of these are copies of copies that have lost so much quality that they're hardly worth publishing again. It's a great shame that so many shots have disappeared. Apart from the afore-mentioned shots taken by Mr.Wilson (which I will endeavour to find) even the official RAF stuff is thin on the ground now. I noticed that the "new-look" (ie- rubbish) RAF site managed to take-away some of the beautiful old shots they had on their (including the Firebirds) and replace them with tiny poor-resolution versions. Guess that's progress?!
Anyways thanks for the feedback guys and if anyone spots anything or anyone else of interest do please let me know - all help appreciated.
Tim