Massed Lightning takeoff
 

Gents,

I'm trying to educate some of my younger colleagues that to go vertical in a hurry one does not require a F15/16. Indeed i seem to remember a black and white film clip showing about a dozen RAF Lightnings departing vertically many moons ago.

Young chaps at work are sceptical to say the least, not believing that such 'technology existed back then' to achieve said result. I have tried You tube but just get lots of clips of Dave and P-38.

Would love a link or other to show that yes, you don't need to rely on American equipment to achieve vertical acceleration and the technology did exist 'back then'

Your help would be most appreciated.

FB.

Cannot help with a clip but many fond memories of watching vertical climbs, dogfights over the airfield etc from my vantage point in the Runway Caravan at Binbrook. And not an American in sight! Happy days.

I believe it was the quickest ever! A pilot strapped to the front of a rocket! Would be great now, but obviously had V difficult missile systems. Somebody told me that in permenant combat reheat you could be out of fuel in 20 mins?? any truth???

Try searching "English Electric Lightning": there are plenty of videos, and this one has the stream takeoff at about 4min 50sec.

Or there have been plenty of Lightning threads, this being the latest :ok:

. . . and speaking of Lightnings, did anyone really intercept a Lockheed U2 in one?

Standby for plenty of "a mate once told me" stories about it.

It probably completed the intercept, then came back to make an approach on a USN aircraft carrier (causing them to push aircraft over the side), then went around just as the carrier changed course to avoid that infamous lighthouse......:hmm:

That'd be 3 'mate of a mate once told me' fables in one!

B:mad:s. 20 minutes, you must be joking. Even an F4 with 21k would be dry tanks in 10 not including taxi and take-off or 'dead' fuel because the fuselage emptied before the wings transfered.

We used to play with a Mk 6 for perhaps 30 minutes but that was usually against a medium speed cooperative target. As related elsewhere, a Lightning was a manned rocket. Airborne, 41k, intercept 40 miles down range, RTB.

OTOH, Mk 6 (IIRC) Malta Sunspot, about 1968, scrambled to intercept a Vulcan aa the Vulcan penetrated at some 240 plus miles. As he closed the bomber now at about 130 miles out he was spoofed and sent back to Malta. He was back on the ground after 9 minutes, airborne in 6 and completed the intercept on the same target. (Times are approximate except to the QTR which only required refuelling - other 'shot-out' aircraft also had missile pack changes in the same time).

Don't need mates to tell these facts:

Done a 12 min sortie and a 1hr 35min sortie in a Mk6, taking off and landing with the same amount of fuel (and not taking any extra on board through AAR). First was combat in the o'head, second was med level PIs).

Also, if you did the flight planning sums in the Mk3, if you got airborne in max reheat, and went into a 30 degree banked turn, you did not have enough fuel to get back to the airfield you took off from, speed and turn radius took their toll.

Fantastic aircraft to learn about flying in, but not much tactical use in the real world, mind you the 4 x AIM9 fit would have been great.....

Tarnished

My first lecture during ground training as a JP was on the engines. One cross section slide of the aircraft's side view. Script went:

The Lightning has 2 engines, one on top of the other. the one on the top is slightly further back to give the pilot somewhere to sit!

Best Xmas present was a F3 with the ventral tank off. Airborne before the RHAG and climbing vertically until you have just enough fuel to come down!

Shortest F6 sortie I controlled was a pair scrambled to intercept a pair of A-10s. They called off the end of the runway and intercepted them just of Spurn point. The A-10s played defensive covering each other. The F6s were turning and burning to keep put of the gunsights whilst trying to get a shot. Total time on channel from start till chicken RTB was about 7 minutes.

Shortest F4 sortie O controlled was a LU sortie with a clean aircraft against a high level target coming in from the east at around 50K. Canned set-up, not sure why it was arranged, maybe they bored or it was a bet. Scrambled as the target reached about 150nm out, reheat climb, bunt at the tropopause, accelerate, climb, single turn in behind, ident, splash, liner, cruise descent for a straight in approach to land. Total time from wheels up to touch down was 13 minutes.

In a word, Yes.

Can't rememberthe oxygen figures but I seem to recall that a Taylor Partial Pressure Helmet with Pressure Jerkin and g-trousers gave the Lightning an additional edge over the Vulcan of 10k or FL 660.

I think full pressure kit and 90k was possible. In this case the Lightning took the U2 from above.

PS, forgot to mention that it also took a brilliant bit of intercept control too. When the Russian's tried it they lost 3 Mig 21. One or 2 got shot down and the other span in.

I always liked one comment I heard many years ago, describing the Lightning.

"It has no aerodynamic qualities at all, but simply cuts its own thread of air, and hangs on it".

I am having a bad morning, comprehension wise!
"When the Russian's tried it they lost 3 Mig 21. One or 2 got shot down and the other span in." If a Mig 21 was shot down, intercepting a U2, who was doing the shooting?

Cue someone to tell me the Gutersloh to Binbrook time please?! (Something along the lines of over cloggy land at just less than mach, hit the heaters when you see the sea and straight in approach with fumes in the tanks. Also stories of getting the burners on too quick and breaking acres of dutch greenhouse glass, etc etc). Over to you chaps!

Tarnished,

I always put your profligate ways with fuel down to hands like a tractor driver! Perhaps it was the fault of the jet afetr all!

How the devil are you?

You have to be joking. easy as p*ss. 180 displaced about 16 miles, fighter M1.2 + M0.1 for each 5000ft above 35K. Roll out range 2nm + half the height difference in nm and convert height to speed would have been the book figures, but with a slow target you'd stay subsonic and just roll out much further behind and then accelerate and climb.

Once had a smart-arse Canberra pilot who'd found out where the jet stream was and climbed into it in the opposite direction and throttled back. He was, I kid you not, going backwards at M0.2. Now that needed a bit of a long roll out....

High speed, high level targets were much more difficult, especially the FAF Mirage IVs. We'd get the heads up from London as they headed up the north sea with a KC-135 and have an F6 plugged into a tanker waiting. Half an hour later they'd appear at M1.8 at around 55K heading south. Break off the tanker accelerate and take a frontal Redtop shot. Till someone screwed up and it was an F3 with Firestreaks. It was given to a WO controller who managed a 5nm rollout. The pilot, Dave Fiddler, actually managed to close to a mile, took his shot, went Liner over B1 at around 50k - and diverted into CS because he didn't have the fuel to make WT....

Remember U16As? Tgt M1.6, Ftr M1.8, 180 x 26 converting to a 90 x 12. Closing at M3.4 (34nm a minute) - with a 4 rpm radar, and if you waited to see you'd missed it. Sweeps gone through, bit early, wait, wait, NOW, "Starboard 190"..... Sh*t - 2 seconds late.....

ORAC, I only said that for the non ICs :)

Anyway, holding all those figures in your head and spewing them out atthe right intervals was the trick.

Your Canberra tale reminds me of a Frogex.

The Vulcan 1s out of Waddo were supposed to do a non-exercise transit over France, descend over the Med and do a low level faker pentration back to UK.

Prestige exercise so all the aircraft launched early to allow for late goers. They then went in to trombone timing legs towards Teeside (as it now) to lose 20 minutes or so. Once they hit the French FIR they also hit a stonking, unforecast, headwind.

They all pushed up to about .95 and were making about 400 kts to Nice. The French, not wanting to waste and opportunity, put up Mystere's for 180 stern conversions. Everything went fine until they rolled out 2 miles behind :)

Possibly the film of an en-masse stream rotation take-off at the SBAC show in 1961 or 62???

I have that on a VHS tape.....somewhere.....must get around to transferring it to digi before the ruddy tape sticks together......:rolleyes:

Er, the Russians :}

You fly into an MEZ Weapons Free and that's what happens.