Modern Commer Replacement

[Steve Pyro]

Cheers Mark, unfortunately there are no Avons or Speys available on e-bay at the moment  

[mgmark]

Cheers Mark, unfortunately there are no Avons or Speys available on e-bay at the moment  

I know - shame really that they are in such short supply for worthy projects........

[Ferrari Spider]

Cheers Mark, unfortunately there are no Avons or Speys available on e-bay at the moment  

I know - shame really that they are in such short supply for worthy projects........

Thunder City in South Africa is always a good source for anything that runs.

http://www.thundercity.com/

[mgmark]

Thunder City in South Africa is always a good source for anything that runs

Marvellous to see - they've got the only airworthy Lightnings flying there, because it's about the only place in the world that allows reheated jets to fly legally owned by privateers.

[Steve Pyro]

There was a documentary on Discovery Wings channel recently about the South African Lightnings - shame there's none left in the UK.

[Ferrari Spider]

There was a documentary on Discovery Wings channel recently about the South African Lightnings - shame there's none left in the UK.

Depends on what you are looking for, plenty of lightnings left in the UK and still running.  Bruntingthorpe still do their thunder days where the birds still run along the runway at max takeoff power, though restricted from rotating.  And classic jets like sabre, canberra, hunter, provost, etc can be seen at kemble, bournemouth, duxford.  If you are getting withdrawal symptoms fancy a car meet at an air show?

http://www.lightnings.org.uk/

http://www.kemble.com/images/Kemble_events_2004.doc

[Perdu]

I was at the Vulcan taxi run and classic car show the other day at Wellesbourne. Their Vulcan XM655 had a power run in which she rotated to lift the front u/c of the deck as the reheat was cut off...

Suppose they could always say they had to do that to induce drag so she couldn't fly off, it was awesome for those of us that loved the old "tin triangle" Sad that she will never be allowed to fly again, though.

There were some great old cars there too and the highlight was being allowed to park under the Vulcan at the end of the show for the Photo-opportunity of the year. (Kept the rain off too, wet weekend in June, yeuch!)

Bill

[mgmark]

Depends on what you are looking for

Nothing comes close to the sight and sound of a full reheat take-off by a Lightning F6 - engines spool up, brakes off, full reheat, rushes down the runway, up off the deck, wheels up, pilot holds it horizontal whilst building speed, crosses the airfield boundary, rotates to the vertical.   About 90 seconds from releasing the brakes, the airfield lies about 60,000 feet below (that's 11.36 in miles) .......awesome indeed.  

Oh - and that was nearly 40 years ago in 1965, long before the recent crop of F-14s, 15s, 16s and 18s which the dear old Lightning would outperform in a vertical climb.   Mind you - sod all fuel left after that to tool around before needing to return to terra firma.   For those who have ever seen or experienced it when the Lightning was in service, the memories remain

[Ferrari Spider]

MGMark, hmmmmh, did you ever see 56 sqdn performing aerobatics with a nine ship F3 formation.  Awesome sound as they used reheat quite a bit to keep the formation within the crowd view.  If memeory is correct they didn't last long probably to much fuel used, but impressive non the less.

[Andy Zarse]

Depends on what you are looking for

Nothing comes close to the sight and sound of a full reheat take-off by a Lightning F6 -

No, your right Mark. But you never forget seeing a Vulcan on rotation and then marvelling at the low speed handling and weird pitch attitude during a display. The most eery noise I've ever heard. Once saw her display at HMS Daedelus and the pebbles on the beach literally shook!

So I was pleased to hear that the Vulcan people at Bruntingthorp have been awarded a big slug of lottery money to get the old bird XM back to the sky. I for one can't wait to see her display and anyone with even the faintest interest in noisy, fast, smelly machines should do to.

[Steve Pyro]

MGMark, hmmmmh, did you ever see 56 sqdn performing aerobatics with a nine ship F3 formation.  Awesome sound as they used reheat quite a bit to keep the formation within the crowd view.  If memeory is correct they didn't last long probably to much fuel used, but impressive non the less.

Googled this pic

[mgmark]

MGMark, hmmmmh, did you ever see 56 sqdn performing aerobatics with a nine ship F3 formation.  Awesome sound as they used reheat quite a bit to keep the formation within the crowd view.  If memeory is correct they didn't last long probably to much fuel used, but impressive non the less.

As well as encounters with the Lightning during various work-related existences over the years, I do remember that one in particular, as a lad being taken to an air show at Gaydon in the late '60s.   Awesome just doesn't adequately describe that 9-ship formation, and the Red Arrows (with Folland Gnats) at the time made hardly an impression by comparison     In the final twilight of its service, I also saw the farewell 9-ship flypast tour of the Lightning around the Lincolnshire airfields.   It was sometime in 1988 or 1989 when I was at Cranwell - can't remember which, but that was an equally evocative and impressive moment as the Binbrook boys gave us a good, if brief, display with a slow flypast (well, about 350 knots or so), followed by an excellent return at just subsonic speed, throttled right back as they crossed the station boundary, whistled across the airfield and then stood on the tails and opened up........the ground shook and grown men cried......

[mgmark]

But you never forget seeing a Vulcan on rotation and then marvelling at the low speed handling and weird pitch attitude during a display.

Andy - indeed not - another awesome beastie.  Low wing loading and bags of unreheated power and amazing things were possible.  it will be lovely to see XM back in the air one day soon and I do hope the guys at Bruntingthorpe manage it.   As well as displays, the sight of multiple Vulcans scrambling from Waddington was again something to behold!

Steve - nice Lightning piccy!

[Ferrari Spider]

can remember once on exercise with the Phantom mud pluggers, we were providing FAC support in Germany,  a phantom overcooked his approach speed into the target, needed to be sub sonic for the munition,  huge condense cloud formed from the intakes back about a mile out, throttles chopped, Spey turbine blades bouncing out of the engine.  It was a good prang.

[mgmark]

can remember once on exercise with the Phantom mud pluggers, we were providing FAC support in Germany,  a phantom overcooked his approach speed into the target, needed to be sub sonic for the munition,  huge condense cloud formed from the intakes back about a mile out, throttles chopped, Spey turbine blades bouncing out of the engine.  It was a good prang.

Marvellous - a not entirely surprising event given the laws of physics.   Now you're onto real hairy-chested territory with the F-4.   A similar FAC exercise for new controllers with aircraft dropping live 1000lbers on the range saw the number 2 in the formation being instructed to bomb on his leader's smoke.   Only problem was that the novice controller hadn't noticed a farmer burning stuff in his field about 10 miles short of the target and the equally novice number 2 didn't realise exactly where he was.... nobody hurt, but an extremely angry farmer took some placating