(soddim #53)
“The idea that a Lightning could do anything useful at 88,000 feet is preposterous!”
Well said Sir. I agree 100%.
The Lightning was a great aviator’s aircraft & fun to fly. It had consummate handling with a 60 degree swept wing. But when the IAS drops below 200 knots, even though the indicated Mach is high at 60,000’+, the Lightning quickly ends up behind the drag curve and will decelerate or descend, or both, unless the wing is unloaded!
The higher it zooms, the more likely it is to follow a ballistic arc. And the Avon engines have to keep going in the thinner air to provide pressurisation to keep the pilot alive.
The comments by ‘soddim’ are spot on. Thank you.
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(barnstormer1968 #49)
“aircraft can acquire extra fuel after take off....
....I mean, who would have factored in Lightnings needing to be refuelled after take off.....Unheard of”
Barnstormer – flying an intercept on a very high altitude target is not like driving your VW to the minimart.
There are no BP or Esso fill up options open all hours located at a convenient place en route.
The RAF has never had more than a handful of tankers at any one time and they are heavily tasked for many roles. So the chances of finding a tanker trailing hoses at the top of your climb to top off your tanks before you accelerate to head off or intercept the ‘hostile’ are probably 1 in a million. Which is why many comments by ppruners refer to the Mk6 which has more fuel tank capacity than the Mk3.
Old hands in earlier posts have asked for fuel figures and profiles flown to reach 88,000’. They, like me, probably wish to sit back in their armchairs – or in front of X-Plane 9.55 on a computer – and reflect on how they failed to do as well as Hale & “Firestreak” and get to 88,000’ alive and in control – and then send details to Wiki!
Wikipedia has some tall stories on board and sometimes they need to be challenged.