Ask a Lightning Pilot

[rhinochopig]

SlipStream77 said:

Simpo Two said:

HereBeMonsters said:

Good question. I do recall something about unbelievable climb rates. Something like runway to 30,000 feet in 30 seconds.

Deck to 60,000 feet in two minutes seems to ring a bell. As a cadet on Field Day at RAF Wattisham in the 70's I vividly remember seeing a Lightning take off and go (almost) vertical - truly ground shaking!

IIRC it took until the F-16 to match that performance.

It was probably an F15 that matched it, although I did read somewhere that a stripped down Lightning did out-climb even an F15.

Interesting reading here...

http://www.lightning.org.uk/archive/0307.php

Thanks for posting that - very interesting, especially the bit on the Mig 25. That's some radar. I remember reading about them in the 80s and the article mentioning the sheer power of the radar fitted. At the time I thought it was cold ward bluster.

They also developed a powerful air conditioning system to keep the pilots cool. Semi-conductors would not work above 65°C, so they stuck to using vacuum-tube avionics, even for the radar. It was a monster item of equipment, weighing in at slightly over half a ton. Its pulse-Doppler search and track were basic, but
the valve technology and its awesome power gave it unmatched power to burn through the thickest electronic jamming to a range of fifty miles. It would kill a rabbit at one kilometre if activated on the ground!

A question I'd like to ask is "Did they ever record a top speed for the Lightning?" A chap I worked with at R-R was an ex-tech. on lightnings and he was adamant that they were never able as they ran out of fuel before the plane stopped accelerating.

[HereBeMonsters]

aeropilot said:

As he was 111 in the sixties...

Along with 8-9 others during his career...

[aeropilot]

HereBeMonsters said:

aeropilot said:

As he was 111 in the sixties...

Along with 8-9 others during his career...

But not related to his time on the Frightning though, as you only mentioned he'd been with the Tremblers.

[dr_gn]

rhinochopig said:

SlipStream77 said:

Simpo Two said:

HereBeMonsters said:

Good question. I do recall something about unbelievable climb rates. Something like runway to 30,000 feet in 30 seconds.

Deck to 60,000 feet in two minutes seems to ring a bell. As a cadet on Field Day at RAF Wattisham in the 70's I vividly remember seeing a Lightning take off and go (almost) vertical - truly ground shaking!

IIRC it took until the F-16 to match that performance.

It was probably an F15 that matched it, although I did read somewhere that a stripped down Lightning did out-climb even an F15.

Interesting reading here...

http://www.lightning.org.uk/archive/0307.php

It would kill a rabbit at one kilometre if activated on the ground!

I've read that several times, but...how? Sounds like a myth to me.

[HereBeMonsters]

aeropilot said:

HereBeMonsters said:

aeropilot said:

As he was 111 in the sixties...

Along with 8-9 others during his career...

But not related to his time on the Frightning though, as you only mentioned he'd been with the Tremblers.

I think he was in more than one Lightning squadron, but mainly XCI.

[aeropilot]

HereBeMonsters said:

aeropilot said:

HereBeMonsters said:

aeropilot said:

As he was 111 in the sixties...

Along with 8-9 others during his career...

But not related to his time on the Frightning though, as you only mentioned he'd been with the Tremblers.

I think he was in more than one Lightning squadron, but mainly XCI.

That would mean he did 2 tours then...?

What was his LCC number?

[HereBeMonsters]

Sorry, don't know. What's a tour? Is it what we in the diplomatic service would refer to as a "posting"?

If so, he was in Iraq, Malta, Cyprus, Germany, Scotland and East Anglia. That I know of.

[B Oeuf]

rhinochopig said:

A question I'd like to ask is "Did they ever record a top speed for the Lightning?" A chap I worked with at R-R was an ex-tech. on lightnings and he was adamant that they were never able as they ran out of fuel before the plane stopped accelerating.

that's a cracker

[speedtwelve]

B Oeuf said:

rhinochopig said:

A question I'd like to ask is "Did they ever record a top speed for the Lightning?" A chap I worked with at R-R was an ex-tech. on lightnings and he was adamant that they were never able as they ran out of fuel before the plane stopped accelerating.

that's a cracker

AFAIK the Lightning was thermally, rather than drag limited in its maximum Mach no., as are a lot of supersonic aeroplanes. At M2.0+ the airframe can reach a safe structural limit temperature at which point deceleration is a wise career move. Often it is canopy heating which is the limiting factor. The F-111 had a canopy temp warning which required the crew to slow down if they had been tooling around at altitude near maximum whack.

When it was being flight-tested from Warton, early high-speed runs in the Lightning were made from the North Wales coast northbound over the Irish Sea. A transonic turn was made over Rhyl or wherever, and reheat selected so that the supersonic part was flown as near as possible over the sea. By the time M2.0 was seen it was time to slow down before a boom was chucked over Southern Scotland, and the Lightning was indeed pretty much now on Bingo fuel and was back in the descent to Warton. All this in just a few minutes.

A chap called Johnny Squier was flight-testing a Lightning T4 in the above manner when the fin failed at M1.7! He jumped out, survived the ejection, and spent more than a day bobbing around in the Irish Sea before being picked-up.

[Tango13]

dr_gn said:

rhinochopig said:

SlipStream77 said:

Simpo Two said:

HereBeMonsters said:

Good question. I do recall something about unbelievable climb rates. Something like runway to 30,000 feet in 30 seconds.

Deck to 60,000 feet in two minutes seems to ring a bell. As a cadet on Field Day at RAF Wattisham in the 70's I vividly remember seeing a Lightning take off and go (almost) vertical - truly ground shaking!

IIRC it took until the F-16 to match that performance.

It was probably an F15 that matched it, although I did read somewhere that a stripped down Lightning did out-climb even an F15.

Interesting reading here...

http://www.lightning.org.uk/archive/0307.php

It would kill a rabbit at one kilometre if activated on the ground!

I've read that several times, but...how? Sounds like a myth to me.

I have a copy of Wings of Fame volume 7 that contains a good article on the Lightning which mentions the duel with an F15. After the bar room challenges had been issued the RAF pilots knew that a fully laden F.MK6 wasn't up to the task so a T.MK5 was stripped of everthing including the ventral fuel tank and used for the contest.The Lightning passed the F15 at 2000ft and streamed a Union Jack be-decked brake 'chute upon landing.

Try and get hold of a copy of Anthoney "Bugs" Bendells' book "Never in Anger" it contains a very funny storey about his time as a display pilot on Lightnings.


As for the rabbit killing radar this is quite possible as microwave ovens were originally called "radar ranges" in the USA.This was after a scientist had a bar of chocolate in his pocket melted by an active radar set he was working on."The Invention That Changed The World The Story of Radar From War to Peace" by Robert Buderi mentions this and that British radar came about after government inquiries into a "death ray" capable of boiling a pilot at a range of 3 miles.

[dr_gn]

Tango13 said:

dr_gn said:

rhinochopig said:

SlipStream77 said:

Simpo Two said:

HereBeMonsters said:

Good question. I do recall something about unbelievable climb rates. Something like runway to 30,000 feet in 30 seconds.

Deck to 60,000 feet in two minutes seems to ring a bell. As a cadet on Field Day at RAF Wattisham in the 70's I vividly remember seeing a Lightning take off and go (almost) vertical - truly ground shaking!

IIRC it took until the F-16 to match that performance.

It was probably an F15 that matched it, although I did read somewhere that a stripped down Lightning did out-climb even an F15.

Interesting reading here...

http://www.lightning.org.uk/archive/0307.php

It would kill a rabbit at one kilometre if activated on the ground!

I've read that several times, but...how? Sounds like a myth to me.

As for the rabbit killing radar this is quite possible as microwave ovens were originally called "radar ranges" in the USA.This was after a scientist had a bar of chocolate in his pocket melted by an active radar set he was working on."The Invention That Changed The World The Story of Radar From War to Peace" by Robert Buderi mentions this and that British radar came about after government inquiries into a "death ray" capable of boiling a pilot at a range of 3 miles.

I've no doubt that a concentrated radar impulse could kill or disable someone or something at close range, but at 1km?

Depending on where you read about it, the MIG-25 radar could 'stun' a rabbit at 30 feet, or 'kill' a rabbit at a mile. These discrepancies, coupled with the fact that a) You'd only need a few of these radars to wipe out an entire army without firing a conventional round, b) AFAIK such weapons are only now being developed with any degree of effectiveness, and c) It makes a very impressive little anecdote, makes me think that most of the claims are vastly exaggerated.

[speedtwelve]

The effective power of the radar signal decreases with distance as per an inverse square law. RadHaz distances for most ground or maritime radar systems are in the order of a few tens of feet at most; I doubt any air radar system in a fighter would cause a rabbit to feel anything worse than slightly warm and fuzzy at any distance other than very close.

The problem with accidentally getting too close to microwave radar is that it tends to cause the fluid in the eyeball to cook first, and blindness is a risk if you look into a radar waveguide at too close a distance, not to mention internal burns elsewhere.

[eccles]

speedtwelve said:

The effective power of the radar signal decreases with distance as per an inverse square law. RadHaz distances for most ground or maritime radar systems are in the order of a few tens of feet at most; I doubt any air radar system in a fighter would cause a rabbit to feel anything worse than slightly warm and fuzzy at any distance other than very close.

The problem with accidentally getting too close to microwave radar is that it tends to cause the fluid in the eyeball to cook first, and blindness is a risk if you look into a radar waveguide at too close a distance, not to mention internal burns elsewhere.

I think it must have taken quite a time for it to have the effects you say.
It was a fairly frequent to have Tornados with brake failure drop their hook and take the wire and we had to go out to recover them. The aircrew would often forget to turn off the aircraft radar whilst we were attaching towing arms and pushing them back off the wire. Standard procedure was for all involved to go down the med centre to see if we had crispy knackers and then enjoy drinking the beer the aircrew had bought us.

[speedtwelve]

eccles

Was it SOP for the guys to put the radar on standby when recovering to the airfield? Was this on F3 or GR, BTW? Did your knackers turn out to be OK? And how did that nice Cpl medic test your nuts to see if they were still operational?

I had a mate who worked as an SA2 Guideline SAM operator at Spade Range when he was in the Mob. They used the T1 emulator which fired out FAN SONG signals. The fire control radar on that was quite beefy and the lads were careful not to be anywhere near it when it was powered up. It was like that bit in Ghostbusters when they're in the lift and turn on Dan Aykroyd's backpack...

[eccles]

It was on GRs (TWCU). I seem to recall part of the taxiing in checks were to shut the radar down/ put on standby, but with all the fuss of taking the RHAG it would sometimes get forgotten. We'd be out on the runway with a tractor and towing arm to push the aircraft back off the wire and put the hook back up, so obviously we were right in the firing line.

I remember gangs of us visiting the med centre on a few occasions after incidents like this, but for the life of me I can't remember what they did to us down there..... I do however remember in vivid detail letching at my mates wife who was a nurse, and filled her white uniform to perfection!

Later on in my career whenever the radar has been fired up in the hangar the only precaution was to keep everyone behind the aircraft.

[bleesh]

To the OP, show your grandfather this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S7Mj33jhek

It'll bring a smile to his face - and yours too!!!!!

Steve

[aeropilot]

bleesh said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S7Mj33jhek

Keith Hartley ringing XP693's neck for a last time IIRC (although he has flown it a number of occasions since, out in South Africa, but not like that )

[Le TVR]

dr_gn said:

I've no doubt that a concentrated radar impulse could kill or disable someone or something at close range, but at 1km?

Safe RF power density at those frequencies is quoted as 10 W/sq m
A 1km radius sphere has area of 12,6 millon sq m
So to achieve a 'perfectly safe' RF power density would require 126 Megawatts of radiated RF.
Be generous and allow them a 20dB gain radar dish and feed it wil 1,26 MW.

I'll happily stand in front of that all day, continuous carrier not pulsed.

Feed it with a few gigawatts then maybe. But gigawatts airborne

[HereBeMonsters]

bleesh said:

To the OP, show your grandfather this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S7Mj33jhek

It'll bring a smile to his face - and yours too!!!!!

Steve

Cheers for that. Sent him that vid:

My Grandfather said:

I have flown Mk 1, Mk 1a and T4 but not the Mk 6. I have enjoyed the type of flying in the videos. In the Iraq desert two of us went off to attack an army convoy and we both came back with sand sticking to the under side of our drop tanks in Vampires - I was also blamed for knocking a whip aerial off a bren-gun carrier during that sortie. We used to fly v. low along the Baghdad - Damascus road trying to get the truck drivers and their mates to bail out. If you got that on film you earned brownie points. In Cyprus when flying Javelins my number 2 told me I was pulling a wake as we flew low over the sea. And as I said before, they paid me to do that sort of stuff!

[Eric Mc]

Any chance you could pump him for some of his thoughts on flying the Javelin - by all accounts a lumbering old beast.

Get him to jot down his reminiscences. There is a market out there for pilot biographies.

I've just been rerading the biography of a chap called John Howe, a South African who flew Harvards and Sabres withn the SAAF and then joined the RAF where he flew Hunters, Lightnings and Phantoms.