Newt (the OP) and I flew Lightnings.

Wimps:

June 1989. 76.35...July 79.10... Aug 79.15... Sept 81.35... Nov 102.55... Dec 33.20. Xmas and leave...Jan 1990 88.35...Feb 65.40. (Short month).

All offshore North Sea on Super Puma.

I applied to join the RAF just to fly Lightnings. Curiously they didn't agree with my enthusiasm. But flying is flying.

Two weeks flying Sep '70 54:10, Oct 122:15, Nov 91:25, Dec 109:25, Jan 88:25Feb 91:55, Mar two weeks flying 85:05, Apr 134:30, May 115:00

Fareastdriver, You wimp ;) Best day/night was Xmas eve 12:30 (10:00 night) flying top cover for President Thiệu while he spent the night with the troops at a FSB.

How do crop duster pilots log their days flying? Each take off and landing, there could be dozens?

I appreciate that you were flying your backsides off in Viet Nam. At he same time as your war in Nam I was flying in our war in Borneo. We didn't fly so many hours as you did.

We didn't need to.

We were winning our war.

dook / newt, remember this?

In the EE Lightning promo film above, I was intrigued by the tyre 'block' tread pattern shown at about 3:35. Was this normal?

Don't know about cropdusting. But when dropping skydivers on busy days. I'd group three or four loads as one flight because they were hot turnarounds and the engine wasn't stopped. Touchdown to wheels off averaged about 4 minutes. I'd imagine it would be similar.

Slightly different, what was your shortest flight full to empty?

BEagle - cheers. Difficult to forget that jet.

spekesoftly - that tread pattern was not normal.

PN - I can't remember exactly, but it would have been about twenty minutes. Night scramble from Wattisham for suspect contact north of Heathrow. Told to maintain 5000ft and expedite, hence about 620 IAS.

Fortunately contact identified shortly afterwards so went home a bit slower and higher.

What was the fuel burn/ endurance at 620 knots low level?!

Fortunately the aeroplane could hold that speed easily in dry thrust (no reheat).

Unfortunately I can't answer your question accurately because it was almost fifty years ago.

I am happy to be corrected by any other Lightning pilots but I would think about 100-120 lbs per minute total.

The scramble I described above was in a Mark 3, the highest performance version of them all.

Off hand I think an F4 could manage to empty the fuselage in about 3 minutes if you put your mind to it.

Even with two Speys full wet that's some going

We Ozzies were part of that shindig as well. You may have won a non declared war, but did managed to lose an empire. We in Oz take some offence to our treatment going through immigration when visiting the Mother Country, given the blood we have shed in your two world wars. In war there are no winners.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I joined the RAF in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia.

easy, only 7k in mains, no transfer from wings or tanks when empty fuselage :)

Got it......

Octane - don't know how cropdusters log their time, but I do know that the late and lamented Peter Charles, author of "Six Feet Over", had about 12000 hours crop dusting in his logbook