EE Lightning Engine Designations
 

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

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

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!)

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

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.

Thanks everyone for your responses.

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.

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

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................