Lightning & F-15 photo?
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EW,
I have a Chris Allen piccie hung on my wall that has a single Lightning (me) with 2 Eagles in echelon port with a sunset background. Sortie flown 1 Dec 1986.
The last location I have for Chris was Training Captain with Cathay. My piccie is too large to scan with anything I have available.
lm
I have a Chris Allen piccie hung on my wall that has a single Lightning (me) with 2 Eagles in echelon port with a sunset background. Sortie flown 1 Dec 1986.
The last location I have for Chris was Training Captain with Cathay. My piccie is too large to scan with anything I have available.
lm
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Re your " Shattered Myth"...says who? The vertical climb was the Lightning's show stopper....I have vivid memories of Lightnings on APC detachments at RAF Luqa Malta..doing just that especially the T5 which was much lighter than the F6. As every aviation buff knows the only drawbacks the Lightning had was lack of endurance and armaments pack...power/speed were not.
As for Lightning versus F15 I did see a photo of an F!5 as seen through a Lightning gun sight .
As for Lightning versus F15 I did see a photo of an F!5 as seen through a Lightning gun sight .
Originally Posted by lightningmate
I have a Chris Allen piccie hung on my wall that has a single Lightning (me) with 2 Eagles in echelon port with a sunset background. Sortie flown 1 Dec 1986.
The last location I have for Chris was Training Captain with Cathay.
The last location I have for Chris was Training Captain with Cathay.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
I seem to recall that the 'official' ceiling for the Lightning, based on its oxygen system, was 65,000 ft with the pilot wearing a Taylor partial pressure helmet. Unlike the full space suit for the SR71 etc, it only had a hard top and sealed front piece. The rear was only a soft leather (IIRC).
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Wiki is not far off in quoting radar range - the range scale went further but a 30-mile pick-up was quite exceptional and had to be a large radar signature target.
Pontius is quite right - anybody taking a Lightning above 65000feet with a normal RAF safety equipment AEA was on a wing and a prayer in the event of loss of pressurisation.
Pontius is quite right - anybody taking a Lightning above 65000feet with a normal RAF safety equipment AEA was on a wing and a prayer in the event of loss of pressurisation.
Wiki is a little unfair in the dismissal of the Lightning’s 1950’s radar etc.
Considering that the weapons system originated from late 1940s research (as did the aerodynamics) it had remarkable capability. There was not much room for a high-power radar, only a small radar dish, but the processing logic and anti-jam capabilities were first rate. Also, remember that all of the computing was analogue, resistors, capacitors and gear wheels – and they kept working at 6g!
The missiles similarly had exceptional capability considering their vintage. There are many stories of the US attempting to ‘keep’ a Firestreak homing head. The warhead was not a puny 9 lb hand grenade as in the early AIM 9s – it was a 65 lb version, and the fusing had brains to ‘seek-out’ the flight deck. Red Top and its advanced computing improved on this and provided a modest head-on capability – probably to address a specific threat from Blinder / Kitchen.
The aircraft / system kill-ratio, the overall reliability, was impressive and better than the early performance of Phantom / Sidewinder / AIM 7.
IIRC one of the U2 intercepts, 74,000 ft, involved the aircraft in a near miss; the Lightning radar failed (a pressurization weakness above 64,000 ?) thus the missile intercept was completed with the ‘gun’-sight. At a late stage, the pilot realized that this was a pure pursuit course – aiming directly at the target, which together with reduced pitch control effectiveness at very high altitude / speeds resulted in a close pass – Lightning inverted and pulling hard downwards.
Comparisons should be restricted to like v like in the era. After flying a French Mirage pilot on an ‘evaluation’ exchange – we flew the Mirage 3B in return, he asked why the Lightning required two engines as it in his opinion one engine provided most of the required low and medium level performance. In latter years, the Mirage was a better ‘system’, but this was 10 years after the Lightning had been in service and many years of failed support for developments – Oh for a T55 with 4 fuselage mounted missiles, two under wing AIM 9K, and guns.
Considering that the weapons system originated from late 1940s research (as did the aerodynamics) it had remarkable capability. There was not much room for a high-power radar, only a small radar dish, but the processing logic and anti-jam capabilities were first rate. Also, remember that all of the computing was analogue, resistors, capacitors and gear wheels – and they kept working at 6g!
The missiles similarly had exceptional capability considering their vintage. There are many stories of the US attempting to ‘keep’ a Firestreak homing head. The warhead was not a puny 9 lb hand grenade as in the early AIM 9s – it was a 65 lb version, and the fusing had brains to ‘seek-out’ the flight deck. Red Top and its advanced computing improved on this and provided a modest head-on capability – probably to address a specific threat from Blinder / Kitchen.
The aircraft / system kill-ratio, the overall reliability, was impressive and better than the early performance of Phantom / Sidewinder / AIM 7.
IIRC one of the U2 intercepts, 74,000 ft, involved the aircraft in a near miss; the Lightning radar failed (a pressurization weakness above 64,000 ?) thus the missile intercept was completed with the ‘gun’-sight. At a late stage, the pilot realized that this was a pure pursuit course – aiming directly at the target, which together with reduced pitch control effectiveness at very high altitude / speeds resulted in a close pass – Lightning inverted and pulling hard downwards.
Comparisons should be restricted to like v like in the era. After flying a French Mirage pilot on an ‘evaluation’ exchange – we flew the Mirage 3B in return, he asked why the Lightning required two engines as it in his opinion one engine provided most of the required low and medium level performance. In latter years, the Mirage was a better ‘system’, but this was 10 years after the Lightning had been in service and many years of failed support for developments – Oh for a T55 with 4 fuselage mounted missiles, two under wing AIM 9K, and guns.
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My piccie is too large to scan with anything I have available
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Indeed... my oldest brother & I went to my parents' in March for a couple of weeks (Father, 77, had had emergency heart surgery... 5 bypasses... and needed help the first little while - he is now walking nearly a kilometer, twice a day, better than he has in years).
While we were there, by brother decided to copy the old slide (transparency) pictures my father had taken in the 1950s/60s.
He had purchased a "slide scanner" for his computer, but it was bollocks... it turned all the pics blueish and dark.
So, we dug out the projector & screen, set them up in the basement, played with the settings on his $400 Canon digital camera, and started snapping shots of the projected film.
They came out perfectly... as if they were the originals!
I've used my $100 Nikon digital to snap shots of paintings & photo prints, and they come out fine... as long as you remove any glass/plastic covers and set up your lighting to avoid glare & reflections.
While we were there, by brother decided to copy the old slide (transparency) pictures my father had taken in the 1950s/60s.
He had purchased a "slide scanner" for his computer, but it was bollocks... it turned all the pics blueish and dark.
So, we dug out the projector & screen, set them up in the basement, played with the settings on his $400 Canon digital camera, and started snapping shots of the projected film.
They came out perfectly... as if they were the originals!
I've used my $100 Nikon digital to snap shots of paintings & photo prints, and they come out fine... as long as you remove any glass/plastic covers and set up your lighting to avoid glare & reflections.
I have used the photography technique before with much success.
However, if I may offer further advice:
Use a long telephoto lens, take it in bright outdoor light, and with the lens orthogonal to the picture.
Lightning Mate (the upper case one!)
However, if I may offer further advice:
Use a long telephoto lens, take it in bright outdoor light, and with the lens orthogonal to the picture.
Lightning Mate (the upper case one!)
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In 1983? the RAAF celebrated their 75th Anniversary with an airshow at RAAF Point Cook, Victoria.
The controlled airspace was a 3nm radius of Laverton - some 1.5nms northwest. Two Lightnings came from Adelaide with a Victor tanker. The Victor stayed 100nms to the West and the Lightnings joined for their display. On the run in, one lost a donk and decided to continue with the sortie.
They were issued onwards clearance as "Direct Edinburgh (Field) FL350 report leaving FL300". They called display complete and 30 secs late' reported left FL300' - they were within 2-3 nms from the field.
Pretty to watch.
JohnB
The controlled airspace was a 3nm radius of Laverton - some 1.5nms northwest. Two Lightnings came from Adelaide with a Victor tanker. The Victor stayed 100nms to the West and the Lightnings joined for their display. On the run in, one lost a donk and decided to continue with the sortie.
They were issued onwards clearance as "Direct Edinburgh (Field) FL350 report leaving FL300". They called display complete and 30 secs late' reported left FL300' - they were within 2-3 nms from the field.
Pretty to watch.
JohnB
Originally Posted by John Botwood
In 1983? the RAAF celebrated their 75th Anniversary with an airshow at RAAF Point Cook, Victoria.
The controlled airspace was a 3nm radius of Laverton - some 1.5nms northwest. Two Lightnings came from Adelaide with a Victor tanker. The Victor stayed 100nms to the West and the Lightnings joined for their display. On the run in, one lost a donk and decided to continue with the sortie.
The controlled airspace was a 3nm radius of Laverton - some 1.5nms northwest. Two Lightnings came from Adelaide with a Victor tanker. The Victor stayed 100nms to the West and the Lightnings joined for their display. On the run in, one lost a donk and decided to continue with the sortie.
My guess it would have been the 50th Anniversary show on 18th April 1971, which I think was the last time RAF Lightnings were seen in Australia?
As by September 1971, 74 Sqn had disbanded and left RAF Tenagh, delivering it's Lightnings to 56 Sqn in Cyprus.
Link below to a photo of 3 x 74 Sqn F.6's and a Victor K.1 taken at the RAAF 50th Anniversary show on 18th April 1971.
MyAviation.net - Aviation Photo Gallery
Spiro:
The calculation is not quite as simple as that. The aircraft would have to an airspeed sufficient for control authority, so there would be induced drag to add into the calculation. Also, the maximum thrust figure is likely to be at the airspeed where the compressor is at its most efficient - which might be quite a high airspeed, when the airframe drag would be significant.
Likewise, the Harrier can clearly accelerate vertically when in VTOL mode, but not necessarily when in conventional mode.
I am not saying categorically that either aircraft cannot do it - just that the simplistic arguments presented do not prove that they can.
F-22
Power Plant: Two Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 turbofan engines with afterburners and two-dimensional thrust vectoring nozzles.
Thrust: 35,000-pound class (each engine) 70000 total
Weight: 43,340 pounds (19,700 kilograms)
Maximum Takeoff Weight: 83,500 pounds (38,000 kilograms)
Fuel Capacity: Internal: 18,000 pounds
With max fuel it weighs 61340lbs vs thrust of 70000lbs, hey presto it has thrust/weight ratio of better than 1:1. Pretty sure F-15, Typhoon, su-27/31 etc will all accelerate in the vertical as well
Power Plant: Two Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 turbofan engines with afterburners and two-dimensional thrust vectoring nozzles.
Thrust: 35,000-pound class (each engine) 70000 total
Weight: 43,340 pounds (19,700 kilograms)
Maximum Takeoff Weight: 83,500 pounds (38,000 kilograms)
Fuel Capacity: Internal: 18,000 pounds
With max fuel it weighs 61340lbs vs thrust of 70000lbs, hey presto it has thrust/weight ratio of better than 1:1. Pretty sure F-15, Typhoon, su-27/31 etc will all accelerate in the vertical as well
Likewise, the Harrier can clearly accelerate vertically when in VTOL mode, but not necessarily when in conventional mode.
I am not saying categorically that either aircraft cannot do it - just that the simplistic arguments presented do not prove that they can.
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Thanks GeeRam
Thank you for the date correction - I should have used a larger ?
I was in the RAAF(R) at the time and should have remembered better. Apart from that, the facts still stand. The Victor holding at FL250 came up as the Lightnings left him inbound with - "We're just just leaving 250 and dropping down lower to have a look at the countryside. His controller (ex RAAF pilot) just roared "Oh no you are not!!" and that seemed to correct the situation.
JohnB
I was in the RAAF(R) at the time and should have remembered better. Apart from that, the facts still stand. The Victor holding at FL250 came up as the Lightnings left him inbound with - "We're just just leaving 250 and dropping down lower to have a look at the countryside. His controller (ex RAAF pilot) just roared "Oh no you are not!!" and that seemed to correct the situation.
JohnB
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RE #18 & earlier
88,000 feet.
Bet that scared the U2 driver..........
88,000 feet.
Bet that scared the U2 driver..........
Check the aerodynamic possibilities for both aircraft.
Perhaps the Lightning pilot donned his 'anorak space suit' as he passed 50,000'? Then somehow he was able to convert the remnants of his energy climb from say Mach 2 at 36,000' into a plausible flying speed (IAS) at 88,000' for the Lightning?
