The Brits love their aircraft and the Lightning has to be one of the most loved. In the annals of British aviation it ranks up there with the Spitfire as one of their greatest fighter designs.
It can be difficult writing about something that is so loved and has had so much already written about it. It’s easy to end up just rehashing what’s already been written a hundred times. All I can offer is my own unique spin on it.
The Lightning has a number of milestones associated with it:
It was the first (and only) jet fighter designed by English Electric.
It was the first supersonic British fighter.
It was the first Mach 2 capable British fighter. They just skipped Mach 1 and went for the whole enchilada steak-and-kidney-pie right from the start.
It was the last exclusively British fighter. Everything since has been done in consortium with other countries.
It almost wasn’t built. The infamous 1957 “Defense White Paper” declared manned fighters to be obsolete. Several promising designs never saw the light of day. Fortunately the Lightning was far enough along that it escaped the axe.
You may wonder why it’s sometimes referred to as the “English Electric” Lightning and other times as the “BAC” Lightning. It was originally designed by English Electric, the same company to make the famous Canberra bomber.
In 1960, only a year after the Lightning became operational, English Electric, Vickers and Bristol merged to form the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). For the majority of its service life it was marketed under the BAC brand.
BAC later got merged into British Aerospace which then merged into BAE Systems. That’s how it goes in the aerospace industry.
The Lightning is kind of an odd looking aircraft at first glance. The very aggressively swept wing is essentially a delta wing with the middle section cut out. This is referred to as a “notched delta”. Don’t ask me what the advantage is over a full delta wing. I would guess it has less induced drag at high angles of attack, but I’m not an aeronautical engineer.
One would think that a full delta wing would have given them room to carry, oh I don’t know maybe fuel, but the designers didn’t seem to think that was important.
The two engines stacked on top of each other is another odd feature. This let them cram two engines into a relatively skinny fuselage. The end result was much less drag than if they’d mounted them side by side.
The performance of this aircraft was nothing short of spectacular. Keep that in mind when I list its shortcomings. I don’t want to sound like I’m putting it down. This thing had F-15 levels of climb performance in the late 1950s.
At very light weights the Lightning had better than a 1:1 thrust-to-weight ratio. Empty weight was between 24,000 and 26,000 pounds depending on the model. The two Rolls Royce Avon engines produced a combined 28,000 pounds of thrust in reheat (Brit-speak for afterburner). Later models of the engine bumped this up to 32,600 pounds.
Note that Rolls Royce likes to name their engines after rivers in England. That’s why you see names like “Avon” and “Trent”. Mind you I have yet to find the “RB211” river on a map. That one must have slipped through the cracks.
All that thrust pushing not a lot of weight means a whole lot of get up and go. Sustained rate of climb was around 20,000 feet per minute. Initial rate of climb was much greater, roughly 50,000 feet per minute.
One popular airshow routine was to stand the Lightning on its tail the moment it came off the runway. This looks great at airshows but actually isn’t the fastest way to get to altitude. An actual best climb profile would be to accelerate to best rate-of-climb airspeed and then switch over to best Mach Number somewhere around 30,000 feet.
Top speed was officially Mach 2.27, more than twice as fast as the Hawker Hunter it replaced. In one test this was the only fighter able to catch up to a Concorde from a tail-chase.
Interceptors like the Lightning were normally optimized for rate of climb and top speed. The idea was to get up to altitude quickly, go fast and hopefully shoot the incoming bomber before it gets close enough to do anything.
Today much is made of the F-22’s ability to super-cruise, meaning to go supersonic without using afterburner. Guess what, the Lightning could do it decades before the F-22 was even imagined!
Service ceiling was in excess of 60,000 feet. They actually ran test intercepts against U-2 spy planes with these. In a zoom-climb (ballistic arc) a Lightning actually reached 88,000 feet! I bet that was a wild ride.
If all that wasn’t enough, it reportedly flew quite well at all corners of its envelope. Unlike most other late 50s designs that had at least one bad handling trait.
Pretty damn impressive for a late 1950s fighter. If they’d built my 1995 Jaguar this well I’d still be driving it.
All that performance came at a price, however. The Lightning, even the improved F.6 version, was always short on range. This is one of those planes that was “min fuel” the moment it took off. When you’re putting gas tanks in the flaps you know you have a range problem. The F.6 at least had the ability to air refuel, which previous models lacked.
Weak armament was also an issue. It had a relatively small radar and only two Firestreak or Red Top missiles in addition to its internal 30mm gun. Technically it was listed as a “night/all-weather fighter” but I’d say that was a stretch. Not all models even had the gun. The gun went away with the F.3 model but was brought back with the F.6 model.
The de Havilland Firestreak was the first British heat-seeking missile, roughly comparable to an early Sidewinder. It had a range of about 4 miles and had to be fired from a narrow cone behind the target. It had a big warhead, however, 50 pounds worth. A hit with a Firestreak would have been devastating.
The Hawker Siddeley Red Top was an improvement over the Firestreak and first saw service in 1964. It had about double the range of Firestreak (8 miles) and limited all-aspect capability. This meant it could be fired from head on at the target, but only if the target was going supersonic (and heated by air friction).
This was pretty advanced stuff for 1964, however. I don’t think any of our heat-seeking missiles had all-aspect capability until the AIM-9L was introduced in 1977.
The Firestreak and Red Top missiles are hard to tell apart. They have roughly the same configuration except for the shape of the fins and the nose cone.
Since the Lightning had better aerodynamics when equipped with the Firestreak, they still frequently carried the less capable missile even after Red Top became available.
The problem with heat seeking missiles, at least the early ones, is that they don’t really work in clouds.
Fortunately the United Kingdom is blessed with near-perfect weather most of the time so the Lightning’s lack of a radar missile wasn’t an issue. Ha! Had you going there for a second, didn’t I?
Compared to an F-4, with four radar-guided missiles in addition to four heat-seekers, the Lightning was outclassed as an interceptor. Sure, it could outmaneuver an F-4, but against a bomber maneuverability isn’t all that important. As a bomber guy, turn radius was pretty low on my list of worries when it came to enemy fighters. If I had ever found myself in a turning contest with a fighter it really wasn’t my day.
It makes sense that Lightnings were ultimately replaced by F-4s and later Tornado F3s. Neither one had the “cool factor” or sheer performance of the Lightning, but were better suited to the job of all-weather interceptor.
Another weak point was the very skinny, high-pressure tires (320 psi!) required to fit inside the thin wing. Combined with very high approach and landing speeds, stopping one of these on a rain-slick runway must have been an experience. Fortunately rain is very rare in the UK.
As Shakespeare put it: “This arid plot, this desert, this realm, this England.”
Another shortcoming was a total lack of electronic countermeasures. It had no radar warning receiver, chaff or flares. Not really a problem for a pure interceptor, but had the Lightning ever gone up against other fighters this would have been a major handicap.
Finally the Lightning had a bit of a problem with fires. Anything that leaked out of the top engine dripped down onto the bottom engine. Since the engines were really hot, you can guess the rest.
These had an admirably long service record, with the last ones being retired in 1988. By that time the airframes had been pretty well worn out. They never had much luck exporting the Lightning. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were the only buyers.
The export Lightnings were actually configured as multi-role aircraft. They could do ground attack and reconnaissance in addition to the air defense mission.
There were still a few of these in civilian hands in South Africa. A company called Thunder City in Capetown had one of the two-seat trainer versions and would sell rides in it. One of their Lightnings crashed back in 2009, killing the pilot. I don’t think the company is still in business. Their remaining three Lightnings were sold off in 2010 but I don’t know if anyone is flying them.
Keep this in mind if you ever get the opportunity to fly in a warbird. These were dangerous aircraft when they were new and most of them are pretty old at this point. I flew on a B-17 a few years back, and about a month later it caught fire in flight and had to be crash-landed. Fortunately no one died in that one. Just know what you’re getting into.
There’s an awful that has been written about these. Here are some first-hand accounts from people who actually got to fly the Lightning.
Flying and Fighting in the Lightning
Lightning Association