EE Lightning Engine Designations

[Fris B. Fairing]

Curious to know how EE Lightning pilots referred to the engines. 1 and 2 or top and bottom or something else?

[DaveReidUK]

A bit of Googling finds a passage from "The Lightning Boys" describing a fire in No 2 engine. i.e. the upper one.

[nipva]

Lower referred to as No 1 and upper as No 2. No real difference between the two except that the brake chute doors were operated by the No 1 hydraulics so you always shut down the No 2 if you needed to fly single engine (unless of course the No 1 had a problem!)

[India Four Two]

... brake chute doors were operated by the No 1 hydraulics ...

That seems like a poor design choice. A dual-system actuator should have been fairly simple to install.

[Pypard]

And No.1 usually comes out for fuel leaks. Always comes out for fuel leaks. In fact removal of No.1 was part of the after-flight servicing.

[Fris B. Fairing]

Thanks everyone for your responses.

[ancientaviator62]

Pypard,
wonderful ! Sums up my memory of the experience of working on the Lightning. To get at anything you had to remove an infinite number of other bits of kit.

[Fris B. Fairing]

I shall now remember it as Two's on Top.

[kenparry]

A friend of mine worked at Warton in the early 60s, on both Lightning and TSR2. During his time there, the company did a review of the Lightning design, and concluded that if they had made the fuselage about 3 inches wider it would have made maintenance very much easier, with minimal performance penalty. Such is hindsight................