Wednesday, May 26, 2021

An English Electric Lightning passes underneath an Avro Vulcan bomber.

 


9 comments:

  1. My ignorance amazes me at times. At first I thought, that could not be an electric plane, then I thought what is wrong with the English? What other kind of lightning is there besides electrical? Then I searched and found out the English Electric Company developed the plane - sort of like our own General Electric developed aircraft engines.

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    1. Think about a Lucas Electric Lightning...

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    2. Can't be electric. There's no extension cord trailing.

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    3. Lucas can't have been involved: the lights wouldn't have worked.

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    4. Lucas once introduced a vacuum cleaner. It was the only thing they made that didn't suck.

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  2. The Lightning's engines were stacked on top of each other. Got to talking with a handful of the jet's mechanics over beverages(as wrenches do) when we were all together at a NATO joint forces exercise in the 80's. The bottom engine is actually the harder of the 2 to change. It's a massive thing too.

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  3. Recall an EE Lightning pilot writing that he took to setting up his landing pattern on the assumption that the engines would flame out.

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    1. Probably due to him running the tanks dry. VERY short legs on that plane. Typical European design with no expectation of needing any real range. Basically a point defense aircraft. Fastest climbing fighter for many many years.
      The lightning could intercept our U-2 spy planes that normally flew 65-75k feet.
      Of all the NATO fast fighters, the Lightning was the only one that could chase down Concorde, the airliner.
      Although the service ceiling was listed as 60k feet, they have been recorded as reaching 88k ft.
      In service about 30 years 1960-90.

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