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Lightning Endurance ?

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Lightning Endurance ?

Old 15th Sep 2018, 12:52
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Lightning Endurance ?

No, nothing to do with fuel but rather the max endurance profile based either on a) oil consumption (a la Buccaneer) or b) Oxygen consumption.

I have heard tell that the correct answer is option b) for an operating max of 10 hours.

Can a WIWOL help educate me ?
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Old 15th Sep 2018, 16:33
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Unrefuelled, isn't the thread title an oxymoron....hat,.....coat.......
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Old 15th Sep 2018, 17:26
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No, it’s a fair question.

There were a fair fair few times when the Russians came south in strength during, say, a JMC and having run through all the available F4s we would scramble the SQRA Binbrook Lightnings to join a tanker and head north to intercept the next pair on the edge of the UKADR north of Saxa/Polestar and follow them in trail down towards the fleet. 90 minutes north, 90 minutes home and at least 2-3 hours in between. Never remember O2 being raised as a problem. But that was probably the same length of the average trail from home out to Akrotiri.

There was also the pleas to be able to take over the Ascension QRA role during the Falklands War (and the reputed Y missile mod so they could carry 4 sidewinders - but that’s a separate subject) - so they obviously thought they could do that leg from the UK.
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Old 15th Sep 2018, 17:56
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Mk 2a did over two hours without being refuelled if you were on a border patrol in Germany! When it became a bit of a game, the Boss decided to call a halt. I think somebody logged two hours ten!! Oxygen was never a problem as I recall even when tanking to Cyprus!
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Old 15th Sep 2018, 20:02
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From memory 5 Sqn did Bahrain and back to Binbrook non stop in May 68, and I think that these legs were over 8 hours. Perhaps an ex 74 Sqn pilot could comment on the times to Singapore? Over 2 hours unrefuelled with overwings was possible.
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Old 16th Sep 2018, 00:05
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We had a 'special' one at Farnborough with trials equipment taking up about half the belly tank so it had an endurance of about 50min.
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Old 16th Sep 2018, 02:37
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I've got several pics in my archive of F.3s and T.5s minus the (already small!) ventral tank in flight and heading for the runway, endurance must've been sub 30 minutes for those flights, surely?

-RP
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Old 16th Sep 2018, 06:14
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I believe the point in question is not he maximum limit of endurance due to fuel capacity - but because of O2 capacity and/or engine oil capacity - assuming the latter being, as with all jet engines, a lot all loss system.

I can remember the major sucking if thumbs as too the maximum engine oil endurance of the F4 when planning the initial deployment to the Falklands and if they should be routed close to the Douth American coast in case of problems - the problem being, IIRC, that no trials had ever been done and nobody knew the loss rate - the tank just being filled up when the level got too low. .

Reaching back, did they put one up on a test with a tanker and just get i5 to fly round and round the UK? For hours and hours?

Eventually they just went for it and they arrived with plenty to spare.
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Old 16th Sep 2018, 08:59
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ORAC you may be thinking of the round UK trip we had to do before being allowed to tank to Cyprus? It was great fun tanking to full then diving down to low level up the west coast of Scotland! Use up the fuel as fast as we could then back to the tanker to fill to full again! Happy days and four plus hours in the log book!
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Old 16th Sep 2018, 09:10
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I always thought it very rude of the Lightning guys who, after we had tanked them nearly all the way from the UK used to bugger off and leave us to plod along at Mach 0.84 while they hurtled off to Akrotiri.

Nothing to do with oxygen or oil shortage I suspect, more a desire to get down and into the bar.
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Old 16th Sep 2018, 09:11
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I don't recall either oil or O2 being a problem on the 5 Bahrain trips, but I recall one of the guys on the way back nearly ran out of O2. I am not sure if he had done something to deplete his O2, but when checked by the docs at Binbrook he had very little O2 in his blood. 54 (Phantom) had to fly round the UK for 15 hours before flying Coningsby to Singapore on, I think, Ex Bersata Perdu. I think that this was to prove the Speys would not run out of oil.
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Old 16th Sep 2018, 10:53
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Oh, THOSE Lightnings
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Old 16th Sep 2018, 10:56
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I recall the story of a very early trail to Cyprus. I think it was with Valiant tankers. Over France, spying a large lake with a huge jet of water shooting skyward the Lightning peeled off for a look see.☺

Apparently such deviation was not wholly unknown and played hell with the fuel planning.
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Old 16th Sep 2018, 11:15
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Exercise Maple Flag in August '68 was the non-stop deployment of 2 F6 Lightnings of 23 Sqn from Leuchars to Toronto. This was a flight time of 7hrs 20mins and there was no issue with either oil or oxygen in either direction.
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Old 16th Sep 2018, 12:57
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Lightning T5 about 40 - 45 mins without a ventral. One trip of 1.25, but that was plugging in to the tanker at top of climb.
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Old 16th Sep 2018, 14:54
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Originally Posted by Pontius Navigator
I recall the story of a very early trail to Cyprus. I think it was with Valiant tankers. Over France, spying a large lake with a huge jet of water shooting skyward the Lightning peeled off for a look see.☺
.
Probably Lake Geneva and they were all lost!
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Old 16th Sep 2018, 15:00
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22 Jan 1986 saw OP DHONANYI, the recovery of the RSAF Lightnings to the UK. I was the co-pilot on the last VC10K taking the last jets home.....

The beat-ups at Tabuk were getting ever lower and ever faster as the jets left, each one outdoing the previous. 'Our' Lightnings took off and did their 'visual circuit ' whilst we took off in ZA141 ('The Lizard'). The air-to-air TACAN spun down at an astonishing rate as the Lightnings caught us in the climb..... If they weren't actually supersonic, they must have been very close to being so!

Handed them over to a Victor over Sicily and popped into Palermo to refuel, then on to Brize.

It must have been a heck of a long time to be strapped to a Lightning; about 4 hours from Tabuk to Sicily and probably a bit more for the remainder of the trip to Warton.

Where they all landed serviceable!

Last edited by BEagle; 16th Sep 2018 at 21:55.
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Old 16th Sep 2018, 18:03
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Originally Posted by Timelord


Probably Lake Geneva and they were all lost!
Difinitely not lost, that implies awareness that one doesn't know where one is. In that case they knew exact where they were, over a lake with a fountain. They just didn't recognise it for where it was ☺

I think upper air was not very busy then. In one occasion over France minding our own business at 450, we declined to tell the French our aircraft type except military 4-jet. They were having none of it and we were intercepted by 2 Mirage and 2 CF104.
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Old 16th Sep 2018, 19:56
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My lasting memory of a Lightning trail was the planned MDP (now called abort point ) at the start of the bracket!
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Old 18th Sep 2018, 09:18
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Fons,

From the Pilot's Notes: (FMk6, in this case, so this also applies to FMk3 & T5. Don't have access to the little-engined Lightning notes)
"Air to air refuelling sorties of up to 11 hours duration are permitted.....
......attention must be paid to the rate of consumption of other aircraft fluids, e.g. oil and oxygen, based on consumption rates recorded from preceding sorties."
MB
Entirely as an aside, most folks I've spoken to who have flown both the clean F-4 (training fit) AND the F Mk6 (war fit!) against each other in 1v1 ACT found them pretty similar in terms of fighting endurance.
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