Was it really fright(e)ning?
 

Have always admired the F3.
Looks like something out of Thunderbirds - all that polished aluminium (the earlier ones anyway) and a planform like a steel dart.
But did it really deserve it's nickname from a pilot's point of view?
I remember reading somewhere that some of the Saudi pilots were literally too scared to fly the thing.
Any former drivers with stories to tell?

Is this a wah?
The nickname frightening was given to the Lightening not the F3.

I think he meant the Lightning F3, not the later, far superior fighter. :E

Marks of Lightning last in service in the UK were the F3, F6 and T5.

Fighter? Interceptor, surely?

the problem was that the spec was written by people who had been bounced too often from altitude in WW2 - they were never going to be caught like that again

the fact it carried far too little fuel was never thought important

personally I was amazed at how they managed to scab on so much extra capacity over the years to fix a basic design flaw

I always thought that the Lightning started off as a P1, a research vehicle. Because the cock-ups of the British aircraft industry and the Whithall that controlled it the RAF found itself without a supersonic fighter project. The Fairey FD2 would have been the best, the Bristol 188 the worst but Canberra production was going to tail off so the P1/Lightning was botched up to fill the slot.

Despite all this it still managed to have an illustrious career. The last of the sports cars.

Of course. Interceptor. Sorry.

I think few posters here realise that the Lightning led the world in performance at the time of first production. Yes, it was a prototype and only little developed but it out-performed just about every other fighter in its day.

In its later development models the shortage of fuel was not such a critical issue for point defence but it never got either a state of the art radar or a good missile nor did it carry enough of them.

Just to put its qualities into perspective, the RAF did not get a fighter that could match either its rate of climb or its' service ceiling until Typhoon appeared some 40-odd years later. Nor did they get anything else so shiny!

Don't knock the Firestreak and Redtop, for their era they were good missiles.

p.s. I have a large scale (about 18" x 12", I think) photo of the last ever Redtop firing if there are any WIWOLs out there interested. It's been sitting inside it's envelope since I got it over 20 years ago, so it might as well go to a good home.

p.p.s. I've a got a smaller framed copy on my wall, so I'm not losing all my memories.....

Where's BEag ..... Sorry, Lightning Mate, when you need him?

Jack

Having watched self-styled steely eyed 226 OCU sudents fresh from Valley & Brawdy stagger white and trembling into the line hut after their first ride in a T4 (instructor jolly trip), and blagged 1 trip in a T5 ('sorry sir, can't reproduce the symptoms and need to diagnose in flight') I can confirm it was impressive.

The Lightning was designed and built for purpose – point defence in a nuclear war.
Quick reaction, rapid climb, fast, all weather, autonomous operation if required, ECM tollerant radar ~ era, missiles with a high kill rate.
Its long service life indicated some success in adaptation, limited more by politics than the willingness to develop it.

A photo which I took earlier:- Firestreak vs Jindivik FL480

http://i46.tinypic.com/2e2phxt.jpg

Not Frightening – Fantastic !

What an excellent photo!

I did hear that there was once a proposal to fit rocket packs into the F1's ventral to give it an ability to reach around FL 900 in a point defence climb against aircraft such as the Myasishchev M-50 Bounder!

"Just what we need - less fuel and a greater rate of climb!", quoth one wag.

it had its moments - to add to the list of Marques, the Saudis were F53 and F56.
- yes, and err, no!

I think it more accurate (although Lightning Mate may have a different perspective) that the instructors had more difficulty convincing themselves that the Saudi students were capable of soloing.

And every Saudi 1st T55 solo was followed by a humungous party. They don't, of course, indulge in alcohol themselves; as one explained 'we are so religious that should alcohol touch our lips it immediately turns into water'.

An earth-bound met-muppet, I found the two Lightning Squadrons [19 and 92] at Guetersloh absolutely awe-inspiring.

As a visiting USAF senior officer said, watching a two-ship vertical climb-out

"J E ..........S U S !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I believe the Lightning even had a data link where the ground controller could control the intercept via the link rather than R/T. We were target on one occasion where the link was down but the controller gave the computer directions by voice.

It was quite instructive: heading such, flight level such, accelerate to Mach 1.6 now, turn to deg now, climb now etc. As we were non-manoeuvring it went like clockwork but I don't if it ever became fully operational.

I also remember one exercise where our OC Admin, a Navigator, got a ride in a T-bird (T4) and spent some hours on the ORP at Binbrook listening to the Telebrief - "Raids Imminent" - all the while watching bombers stream through the overhead. No doubt they had been splashed by fighter or SAM.

Finally they were scrambled against a target and went to Fl400 where they identified a civair in the Blue Way. Just 40 miles from base they were Bingo and RTB.

Was due to get a T-bird ride with a mate I went through training with, but on the day it went u/s so I had a trip in the simulator instead. Managed FL930 before it flamed out and was doing Mach 2 in the descent with no engines. I thought that quite impressive! :E

Yes, SLEWC and the Lightning had a data link mode, but it was never operationally used.

The software was still in use in 1975 when I was at Neatishead, but very rarely used. It need 2 controllers to do 4 simultaneous intercepts, whilst a single controller could easily do two; the software was so bad that that for a high speed target the software told you to go to M2 in the the opposite direction to get a 90nm separation before turning back towards the target - which you ignored and flew the "blip" to end up under the commanded position at the final turn.