I agree with expressed sentiments about the Hunter too.

The swinging sixties - you were there too Beags, were you not?

What is it like to fly a jet fighter
 

If you want a condensed answer FlareAngel, then just gaze at the image posted by Lightning_Mate.

Arguably it was in a class of its own.

There have been a fair number of jet fighters manufactured and very few of them were unmatched in their day. The Gnat, for example, not the trainer used by the RAF but the fighter used by the Indians; the sublime Hunter; the Viggen, all of them would make their pilots tingle, and people with their feet on the ground stop and stare.

The Lightning though somehow got in to your very bones and remained there.

What is it like to fly? It is like anything else that makes your heart dance, that makes your brain fizz, that makes your vocabulary obsolete, like anything else that sears itself into every morsel of you, that haunts you, that challenges you, that stretches you further than you thought you could stretch — and also hurls you, with a thumping twirling exhilarating explosion of power and technology into a dimension that for nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine people is a matter of seat spacing, in-flight videos and the risk of blood clots from not moving for hours.

I think the 'jet' is superfluous. If you attached sensors to the brain, the heart, the soul of a Sopwith Pup pilot, a Hawker Fury pilot, a Spitfire pilot, a Lightning pilot, a Viggen pilot, a Mig-21 pilot, a Rafale pilot, a Typhoon pilot I suspect you would find very similar reactions.

Because it is not the aircraft, it is being a fighter pilot that matters.

Foxed Moth,

:D:D:D:D:D

Aaah WIWOL

Correct :)

You out there Newt ?

Trim stab


Quote:
Tourist I think you are well off the mark with your comments about previous generations of fighter pilots
Tourist is a failed FJ helicopter pilot so he doesn't know what he is talking about - just ignore him!


Now THAT is funny!

Does that mean we should all ignore your comments too:} :} :E

Remind me again which airline you intend to fly fighter jests with using a commercial licence:ok:

Lightning Mate, the Sixties had swung to conclusion by the time I started flying training - but Brawdy in 1975-6 on the Hunter was simply brilliant!

Perhaps those who have never flown a single seat fighter, even once, might care to **** off from inflicting background noise through bickering on this thread?

I'm out here LM and keeping an eye on things!:ok:

Ah Beags.

Rolling vertical scissors :eek:

A four-gun shoot in an FGA9 was something else wasn't it! Black sticky stores tape over the circuit breakers to stop everything popping out.

.....and that smell of cordite. All tremendous stuff.

Good to see you on CAP Newt. :)

Normally in the Vampire we only fired two, on the rare ocasion I fired four my bloody feet wouldnt stay put on the rudder pedals, vibrated like a jack hammer! a full load of FFAR at night from a CF100 was somthing else, made night into day, the poor sod towing the Radop always beat us to the bar, cant say as I blame him, having a few dozen of these things fired 3000ft behind you every day was not conducive to longevity, we stuck our USAF exchange type with the job whenever we could! On a more serious note, the tresure spent during the Cold War fairly boggles the mind, cant see any nation spending like that again.

Not a lot of pilots fired four guns in the Lightning - just as well because the vibration was the most enduring memory and usually caused a number of failures.

Which model was that?

FMk2 - those were the days!

Sorry, I had forgotten that one. I was thinking of the 2A.

Where were the other two guns?

How about the F6 ventral gun pack. Now there's a quaint piece of engineering that only the Brits could do - a fuel-cooled gun pack!!!!!! :\

Edit: found the other two.

We could remove the missile pack and replace it with a two-gun pack. I only ever got to use it air into sea - 100% hit the sea so I guess it was a good score!

Tourist, I mean nothing by my following question other than the simple question, and I am not being rude.

What did you mean here? Reply by PM if you wish.

Ah, the FMk2A, the best Lightning of the lot!

FlareAngel,

Here you go, by Plt. Off. John Gillespie Magee Jr. RCAF.
Killed 11 Dec 1941.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew.

And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Too serious, anyone?
 

@ Lightning Mate, with all due respect to you super WIWOLLers - that "going upwards" shot isn't anywhere near as good as the original Charles Brown (I think) shot of a Meteor 8 just about absolutely vertical - the soul-stirring shot you show had to be tilted to get the aircraft "right".
But the spirit's there OK, and a good thing too.

@FlareAngel ... At the risk of confirming what one of my instructors at FTS said:"He's a very intense young man, this one" (and I've never in all these years worked out if it was a compliment) - to reach the time and place when you can fully enjoy the delights that fast jets offer, there's a long, long period of effort, concentration, doubt and sheer hard work involved. And that's after the selection process. And even if you do get to the point where those Wings can grace your left-of-chest "They" might still select you for 4-Prop work, or heliochopters ...
And another thing - once you've got those Wings, you'll find that you have to go on and on with the learning thing, otherwise you stop learning very fast, and for good.
N.B. I'd finished my stint even before BEagle started flying training, so waddo I know ???
Except that Yon Vampires, Venoms, Meteors and even a few delightful Hunter hours (plus more fun at low level on Canberras) made all the nail-biting and agonising worth while.

JP,

It wasn't tilted. It was taken going up in a long lazy loop from a T4, and captured just past the vertical. Another pic was taken coming down, this time vertically. I'm happy to post it if you would like.

Do you have a pic of the Meteor - love to see it.

LM