English Electric Lightning

[Greybeard]

From Facebook.

Close view of the cockpit of an English Electric Lightning

Image Author: Craig Sunter

One of the interchanges:

I think pilots needed two extra eyeballs considering they had to look down that cathode ray tube radar boot and fly the aircraft as well. I sometimes wonder why they didn't standardise on the two seater.

Tim. We also had 29 functions on the radar hand controller, situated just behind the throttle box. Bit of time sharing was required but we got used to it. On top of that was mental arithmetic to work out the intercept profile required. We even had to convert target  scanner elevation degrees into thousands of feet. Kept us busy.

[Joolstacho]

Always wondered why they didn't go full delta on the lightning, I'm sure they had their reasons, but the wing vortices with this weird planform must have been enormous.

[Greybeard]

Always wondered why they didn't go full delta on the lightning, I'm sure they had their reasons, but the wing vortices with this weird planform must have been enormous.

It was enormously successful so I guess they got it right. Maybe a delta wing could not take the stress of quick manoeuvres combined with all that power.

[Joolstacho]

On the other hand, you wonder why no other fighter jet manufacturer tried the Lightning planform.
Maybe it was like the Harrier... great performance, but with very limited range - what was it? about 20 minutes endurance at good power?
The Viggen and Eurofighter and others with the full delta were highly successful -being able to fly at a very high A of A had big advantages. The Viggen could land on just a short stretch of road.
Not that I know a lot about it, just my impressions.

[Black Sheep]

The Lightning was a victim of politics. All new fighter projects were cancelled but the prototype Lightnings were allowed to continue as research projects. As research projects, they were designed without armament or a decent fuel capacity. Once the politicians realised that we did actually need fighters, the Lightning was then developed into a fighter as best they could but still with limited fuel capacity and not even enough space in the fuselage for a fire suppression system.
Pretty amazing planes though. I have flown with them but never in one. Sigh... 

[Greybeard]

A lot of info here about the Lightning:
https://tinyurl.com/yb3yrzm6