One for the Brits here…

In the early days of jet aircraft, there was a lot of learning going on, very quickly.

The British Government wanted an interceptor that could provide “…a minimum climb speed of at least 50,000 ft per minute if not faster and an operational ceiling of 60,000 ft plus, with an attack speed in excess of Mach 1.5…”

English Electric Coy Ltd came up with a radical twin-engine design that stacked two Rolls-Royce Avon engines on top of each other. One below the tail fin and the second, further forward to aid C of G.

This configuration ensured an extremely low drag (very small frontal area), but it meant that the fuselage was basically all engine and cockpit with bugger all room for fuel. Later models were equipped with over-wing drop tanks to help out, but this restricted speed to 1000mph when fitted.

The Lightning seemed to be one of those toys that all big boys love. Exchange test pilot ‘Deke’ Slayton (later a Mercury astronaut) described the prototype he flew as his ‘favourite aircraft of all’, as good to fly as an F86, and as fast as an F104. Test pilot Roland Beaumont stated that “nothing at that time had the inherent stability, control, and docile handling characteristics of the Lightning throughout the full flight envelope…” Squadron pilots would have time trial competitions to ‘take off, fly to height, ‘launch weapons’ (exercise purposes only) and land, in the shortest time (with the tanks as empty as regulations allowed).

As the ‘Frightening’ was basically a pair of Rolls Royce Avon’s, with 4 stage afterburners, and a chair, this could be quite a quick mission…

The preferred near-vertical method would see the Lightning initially climb at 450 knots (830kmh), hitting Mach 0.87 (1,009 km/h) at 13,000 feet, going supersonic at 36,000 feet.

With that kind of ridiculous power available, the Lightning was able to carry out intercepts at 65,000 feet, with ‘ballistic intercepts’ up to a maximum of 88,000 feet (Flt Lt Mike Hale, who also was the only pilot to successfully ‘stern chase’ Concorde…)

Lightning F3 of the Lightning Training Flight

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