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    The English Electric Lightning
    The English Electric Lightning
    The English Electric Lightning
    Ebook149 pages43 minutes

    The English Electric Lightning

    By Martin W Bowman

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    About this ebook

    A photo-packed history of this Cold War-era supersonic fighter aircraft.
     
    The early 1950s were a boom time for British aviation. The lessons of six years of war had been learned, and much of the research into jet engines, radar, and aerodynamics had begun to reach fruition. In Britain, jet engine technology led the world while wartime developments into swept-wing design in Germany and their transonic research program were used to give western design teams a quantum leap in aircraft technology.
     
    The English Electric Lightning emerged at this time. This supersonic fighter aircraft of the Cold War era is perhaps best remembered for its amazing takeoff performance, its exceptional rate of climb, and its immense speed. Here, Martin Bowman takes us on a photographic journey, illustrating the various landmarks of the Lightning's impressive operational history.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJan 30, 2018
    ISBN9781526705587
    The English Electric Lightning
    Author

    Martin W Bowman

    Martin Bowman is one of Britain's leading aviation authors and has written a great deal of books focussing on aspects of Second World War aviation history. He lives in Norwich in Norfolk. He is the author of many Pen and Sword Aviation titles, including all releases in the exhaustive Air War D-Day and Air War Market Garden series.

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      Book preview

      The English Electric Lightning - Martin W Bowman

      Introduction

      The Lightning presented a major challenge. It was the RAF’s first supersonic, night/all-weather interceptor. In speed alone it doubled the performance of the Hunter. But more than that - with its combination of AI23 (airborne interception radar) and ‘Firestreak’ air-to-air guided weapons - the Lightning had a genuine interception capability against high-performance bomber aircraft. Opinion within Fighter Command was sharply divided as to the need for gun armament on modern fighters. Missile supporters claimed that only guided missiles would be effective in future air combat, while those who supported the gun insisted that it was still the best short-range, multi-shot weapon available. The Lightning was designed as a high level, fast response interceptor because that was the perceived threat at the time. As a result the Lightning’s guns pointed up by a few degrees, an angle which was exacerbated by the increased angle of attack if flying at a low air speed. The idea was that the Lightning would manoeuvre into a position astern of the target by using the information from the A123 onboard radar. The aircraft would then close into gun range keeping below the target’s slipstream. However, the actual threat during the service life of the Lightning was predominantly low level and if a low-level target had been engaged as previously described the Lightning would have hit the ground or the sea long before achieving a gun firing position. But for the time being, the main thrust of the Lightning weapons development was limited to the ‘Firestreak’. With the introduction of the Lightning, air defence was at last being given an appropriate degree of priority which many fighter experts thought was long overdue.

      Although the English Electric Lightning was never required to attack another aircraft it was the RAF’s primary interceptor for more than two decades during the Cold War era. The Lightning was developed to intercept increasingly capable Soviet Tupolev Tu-16 ‘Badger’, Tu-22 ‘Blinder’ and Tu-95 ‘Bear’ bombers and thus had exceptional rate of climb, ceiling, and speed although this performance made the Lightning a ‘fuel critical’ aircraft and its missions were dictated to a high degree by its limited range. Later developments provided greater range and speed along with aerial reconnaissance and ground-attack capability. Let us not forget that the Cold War years were dangerous years but no one can ever take away the vivid memories and the cacophony of sound generated by the twin Avon engines, which reverberated around an airfield at takeoff time like a violent storm

      The only all-British Mach 2 fighter aircraft, the Lightning was used by the Royal Air Force, the Royal Saudi Air Force and the Kuwaiti Air Force. Early in 1947 W.E.W. ‘Teddy’ Petter, chief design engineer at English Electric in Preston, received from the Ministry of Supply, a study contract (Experimental Requirement ER 103) which called for a high speed research aircraft, capable of Mach 1.5. Companies such as Avro, Hawkers and SARO initiated design studies, but, in the final analysis, the deltawinged Fairey FD.2 and English Electric P.1 were successful. Initial design studies for the P.1 began in 1948. Taking into consideration the work carried out by German aerodynamicists in WWII, the design team at English Electric decided on highly swept-back wings and tailplane. The wing section was thin enough to reduce drag at high speed to a minimum but it was also capable of producing sufficient lift at low speed to give a good take-off and landing performance. In mid-1949, Specification F.23/49 was issued and English Electric started work on two prototype P.1s and a structural test specimen. Petter’s team utilized experience gained on the English Electric A1 jet bomber (Canberra) and data from the Shorts S.B.5 research aircraft. Power was provided by two Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire AS-Sa 5s of 8,100lb thrust each; considerably less than the eventual powerplants of the Rolls-Royce Avon 302s, with 16,3601b per engine in full reheat. The engines were ‘stacked’ one above and behind the other, to double the thrust while increasing the frontal area by only 50% over that of a single unit.The P.1’s wings were swept at 60° to minimize wave drag, with ailerons in the outer trailing edge to the tips. A swept-back, all-moving tailplane was mounted below the wing plane. The main undercarriage wheels retracted into the thin wings. In 1950 Petter left English Electric to join Folland Aircraft and responsibility for the P1 design and subsequent development passed to F.W. (later Sir ‘Freddie’) Page.

      On 11 August 1954, on only its third flight, P.1AWG760, flown by Chief test pilot for the Lightning, Wing Commander Roland P. ‘Bee’ Beamont, broke the sound barrier to become Britain’s first truly supersonic jet, capable of exceeding Mach 1 in level flight. Lightnings have captured the imagination of boys of all ages ever since. Beamont, who also flew most of the ‘Century Series’ US aircraft, stated his opinion that nothing at that time had the inherent stability, control and docile handling characteristics of the Lightning throughout the full flight envelope. The turn performance and buffet boundaries of the Lightning were well in advance of anything known to him.

      The first P.1 production example flew on 30 October 1959. It had two Rolls-Royce Avon RA.24R 2I0 engines, each giving 11,250lb static thrust at maximum cold power and 14,430lb static thrust in full re-heat. With an all-up weight of 34,000lb, the 28,000lb thrust of the engines provided a very good power/weight ratio. It had two 30mm Aden cannon in the upper front fuselage and could have two more fitted in the lower fuselage in lieu of the missile pack. It had the Ferranti AI.23 Airpass radar in the nose shock-cone and carried two ‘Firestreak’ infrared missiles, one on each side of the fuselage. The first production variant was the F. 1, of which 19 were built. These were then followed by a further 28 F. 1A variants.

      The first Lightnings were delivered to the Central Fighter Establishment at RAF Coltishall, Norfolk, in December 1959 and the first squadron, 74, formed at the same station, in July 1960. Nine front-line squadrons operated the Lightning: 74 ‘The Tigers’; 56 ‘The Firebirds’; ‘Treble-One’, 19; 92 ‘Shiny Blue’; 23, 5, 11 and 29.

      In September 1960 Squadron Leader (later AVM) John F. G. Howe, a South African by birth, who had flown SAAF F-86 Sabres in the Korean War, led formation flypasts of four F. 1s at the Farnborough Air Show. 74 Squadron became fully operational the following year and a nine-ship formation was flown at Farnborough 1961, when the first public demonstration of nine Lightnings rolling in tight formation occurred. Flight reported: Nothing in the show exuded more sheer power than the three-second interval stream take off by the nine Lightnings of 74 Squadron, beating down the runway in a sustained blast of brown dust and stomach-shaking noise. As the rear machines were taking off,

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