Care to elaborate on that? Sounds interesting...

I grew up watching Keith 'Hooligan' Hartley in XP693 which was BAe Warton's chase aeroplane.

He used to have some serious fun over the Irish Sea & Ribble Marshes 'chasing' Tornados.

Happy,happy days
:ok:

If anyone remembers 74 leaving Tengah in the late 60s?,that was a superb mass display of tarmac lighting!!They man responsible for most of that now runs the Delta Hunters.Otherwise, you may have forgotten the late Russ Pengelley.In my day it was John Clift,who did the displays throughout the late 70s in a F3.The Lightning display always blew off the "Red Indians" or "Slivers" or any other Starfighter performance!!!!!!!

The Lightning was always the most impressive aircraft to see fly in the 70s. My best memory was standing on a haystack right under the approach in the field off the end of Binbrooks runway taking pictures with my Zenith E, then getting a b********g from a RAF policeman who came running over saying I had caused a couple of go arounds.Don't know if I had but it made me move.
D

.

Cannot really add anymore. I can only assume they tied up some sort of system whereby blue diesel was injected into the exhaust, on demand. Whether it was on both engines or not I wouldn`t know. Presumably it was a single seater. Unfortunately, I didn`t have my camera with me at the time but it must have been July 1969 as I was working on a fruit farm at the time picking strawberries!

Both practice displays took place at lunchtime (presumably a circuit embargo was in place for other aircraft)
.It was the usual seven minute display and the airfield and surrounding villages were covered in this blue haze! Strawbs stayed red though!:)

I've just stumbled across this thread after watching the most amazing program on Channel 270 on SKY, the SA Direct Channel of all places. It was called simply "Aviation" on the planner but seemed to be called "Thunder and Lightning" when titles came up and was all about Thunder City. Just thought I'd post so you can look out for it as SKY seem to repeat every few days/weeks.

I then ran a quick search and ended up here to find out the answer to a question I'd often wondered about, and one which they again mentioned in the show.

There was some fantastic footage of all TC's a/c, but the best bit was the Lightning's vertical climb, from both outside and inside. The rate that altimeter was going up at :eek:

It is a real shame that one won't ever fly in the UK. How great it would be to have a "Cold War Memorial Flight" with the Vulcan and a Lighning flying side by side. Oh well one can dream. If I'm not working when the twilight run happens in Feb, I may just pop along.

:)

Lightning
 

I worked on Lightnings between 1975 to 77 and must admit that although a technically challenging machine to work on, I still regard them as the 'Queen of the Sky'...Great to have heard that one of our T-birds is still intact in South Africa, not sure if it is still flying though. I still remember the guys polishing up the last one to leave RAF Wattisham with tears in their eyes...!!!

Nettman, this is a 7 year old thread - half the people you are replying to may have died of old age by now!

G

I doubt the world will ever again see an airborne Lightning.

More's the pity.

You never know .............. index

gasax, you beat me to it, hopefully soon :)

A flying T5 would be great, but it's a very long road from getting the engines running to having an airworthy aircraft.

I wish them well, but I'm not holding my breath.

I can't be bothered to read through a thread based on such staggering twaddle.

On a point of order and, frankly, basic third year literacy, there is no apostrophe in "Lightnings". Oh dear. :ugh:

Is the OP so scrambled he thinks the FAA oversees UK airspace?

Why can't this place reflect it's name, ie "Professional" pilot's forum, not the dopey spotter's forum?

There is indeed no apostrophe in "Lightnings" but neither is there one in possessive its. Greenhouses & Stones?

Any question about the Lightning - or a similar machine - will now be handled through the filter of two words: Hunter + Shoreham.

Though you can't say they aren't approaching the restoration in a professional manner - lovely spread of WIP photos here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/123533772@N08/

A friend of mine used to work at Warton. He remembers and early (might have been maiden?) Tornado flight accompanied by a Lightning chase plane.

The 'new' product came back towards the airfield flat out with the Lighning flying barrel rolls around it! (Allegedly!).

Bob lightfoot solo display
 

Thanks for resurrecting this thread, which was unknown to me: I loved the failed attempt at admonishing grammatical incorrectness by Wageslave above and Raymond Dome's subsequent correction-correction. I know the thread is/was about Lightnings (and also "Lightings" or "Lightning's" at various points) but it did make me smile on a rather slow Monday morning at work.

And found my answer