Lightning experience
As one whose direct involvement with the Lighting was on the technical side, two and a half years of fixing fuel leaks and carrying out the fire mod programme on 56 Sqdns F6 aircraft at Akrotiri, whatever its capabilities as a weapon of war, as an aircraft to display the power of two Avons in and out of reheat surrounded by the minimum amount of aluminium possible there was and still is nothing to beat it! The massive effect that the Vulcan has had over the past few years has as much to do with the absolutely mind blowing noise of four Olympus working hard for a living as for its place in history as the last of its breed.
I was at Biggin for the last RAF organised battle of Britain display back in about 1976 on detachment from Lyneham, and the display that had the most effect on the public was the Lightning display where its arrival was via the valley at the Saltbox café end of the airfield followed by a pullup in the centre of the display line to the vertical with the engagement of double reheat, you could actually see the crowd jump as the noise hit them followed by max rate turns yet again with reheat engaged, just a stunning noise and display, nobody would allow it today but by God it was good!
Having seen the amount of work that had to be put into the aircraft to keep it flying and the antiquity of the systems used in it, we had to get a pipe bender from BAC come out to Akrotiri to bend a main fuel pipe for us as all the aircraft and the pipes were individually matched as they were all different, it was never going to be a major success as to the numbers built, the technology moved on so quickly but it was a lovely plane to watch displaying with such an impressive presence.