Having spent about an hour reading the whole sorry saga, it sadly confirms what I suspected all along: namely that the guys at Thunder City were a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs that really had very little idea what they were dealing with.
Having spent the best part of 10 years on Lightning’s, nearly 2000 hours and approaching 3000 sorties, reading the accident report leaves me amazed that I only ejected once. But in those days we had hundreds of well trained and well-motivated technicians looking after us, and we literally trusted them with our lives.
As most Lightning pilots will attest, most of the time the aeroplane was a pussy cat. But like most cats, in the blink of an eye it could turn on you and rip your eyes out. Thankfully, in the time I flew them, we buried very few friends and those we did were mainly the result of Operator Errors rather than technical failures.
Before the days of the modern generation of fighters, the Lightning stole the show at many air displays. Who can forget the sight of it performing in the hands of some seriously talented operators; Pete Chapman for instance? But those guys had hundreds and hundreds of hours on type, flew it day in day out, knew what they were doing and were regulated and supported every inch of the way.
With the aeroplane nearly 40 years old, systems and spares getting tired and hard to come by and a handful of technicians that have been proved to have been woefully lacking in experience and authority, I'm amazed they hadn't had an accident sooner.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and it's easy for people to sit back after the event and pontificate. But the spectacle of a Lightning in burner rotating at the end of the runway and going vertical has an amazing effect and the desire to see it again and again and fly the things forever is very powerful. But the Lightning is no Spitfire and the costs of maintaining just one, let alone 4 must have been horrendous and the temptation to cut corners very compelling. Had those in South Africa had a bit more of an idea of what they were dealing with and listened to the CAA, we wouldn't be having these discussions and a fellow aviator would still be alive.