Was it really fright(e)ning?
noprobs,
Whoever said that speed is life! Here's a story confirming the usefulness of VIFFing! This decription reminded of a story by a naval ace who said that the Harrier force always kept the advantage in exchanges with the Lightning force although of course the higher exchange ratio dropped as they moved from the unknown 1v1 phase to the "have seen what you can do" 1v1 phase through to many vs many sorties.
Thought the burnerless Lighntning even simulated the Argie Mirage 3 for the RAF Harrier force when they were practising at being interceptors in order to bolster task force interceptor numbers down south in '82. Having said that, reheat or not I bet the latter Mirage F1 was a handful in ACT.
I started turning hard after the first pass, and quickly suckered him into a low speed fight that soon led to a level scissors in which I was getting the better position. On the next cross, I saw him apparently doing the sensible thing, getting ready to bug out as his nose sliced down away from me. However, as I reversed, I saw his nose continuing to move in the same yawing motion, as he entered a spin. We still had plenty of height, he had a recoverable aircraft, and I had a jet in which I could change the thrust vector. So I moved the nozzles to the braking stop, pointed vertically down, and did my best to get the pipper on the rotating cockpit for the film.
Thought the burnerless Lighntning even simulated the Argie Mirage 3 for the RAF Harrier force when they were practising at being interceptors in order to bolster task force interceptor numbers down south in '82. Having said that, reheat or not I bet the latter Mirage F1 was a handful in ACT.
Last edited by ARXW; 27th Jul 2012 at 16:01.
Per Ardua ad Astraeus
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ARXW - having Lightning'd and viffed a fair bit, 'Viffing' is excellent, yes, but in more than a 1v1 you can find yourself at a distinct disadvantage having nozzled away your IAS and being left as an almost 'stationary' target with no K E.
On Suffolk's phinest phighter squadron, we once did some ACT with FAF Mirage F1s after the Malvinas war, with the FAF simulating Matra 530 profiles...
We did the usual QWI-briefed stuff, they kept it simple. They won!
Nice jet, big engine, good radar and weapon system.....SSSETOWTF as I understand the saying goes!
We did the usual QWI-briefed stuff, they kept it simple. They won!
Nice jet, big engine, good radar and weapon system.....SSSETOWTF as I understand the saying goes!
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Some years ago speaking with a bunch of Saudi Air Force F15 pilots, many who had flown the Lightning I asked which they preffered. The common consencus was the Lightning with the F15 weapon system.
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This months Classic Aircraft magazine has a 6 page article on the U2 Lightning interceptions, if anyone is interested.
Ask one of our old F1 pilots about fighting against the phantom - they'll quickly dismiss it as: not a problem! (we used to have both, in fact we're still flying the phantom down in the south-eastern Med with all the latest gadgets on it). I imagine French M F1 would have had similar disdain for la phantom britannique (the Lightning that is)! The F1 had better T/W than the Mirage 3 but still compared to the mighty Lightning it was certainly lacking. Then again the phantom was also found lacking compared to the Lightning unless you want to talk about a very clean Spey jet.
talking about frightenings, how does this qualify?:
talking about frightenings, how does this qualify?:
Last edited by ARXW; 28th Jul 2012 at 08:54.
