English Electric Lightning | The British Cold War Supersonic Interceptor And Jet Fighter

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English Electric Lightning, The British Cold War supersonic interceptor and jet fighter capable of unrivaled performance and capability.
A unique feature of the design was its vertically staggered engine configuration of two Rolls-Royce Avon turbojets, housed within the fuselage. The aircraft was initially conceived as an interceptor, designed to defend airfields housing Britain’s V Force of bombers, comprised of the Avro Vulcan, Handley Page Victor, and the Vickers Valiant. It was thought that during the Cold War of the 1960’s these could be vulnerable to attack from the air in any future nuclear conflict.

Petter’s initial design was for an aircraft capable of Mach 1.5 and he determined that as a consequence a conventional 40° swept wing would be required. A proposal was submitted in November 1948, and after the project was provisionally accepted by English Electric, it was given the designation P.1 in January 1949.

On 29th March 1949, the Ministry of Supply granted their approval for work to begin on a more detailed design, as well as the creation of wind tunnel models and a full-size mock-up. The design developed at quite a pace and in the latter part of 1949, the target speed was broadened to Mach 2. This meant that in Petter’s opinion, the required wing sweep needed to be increased to 60° with the ailerons moved to the wingtips. Low-speed wind tunnel tests showed vortex issues would be generated by the wing, creating a large downwash on the tailplane. This was quickly resolved by lowering the height of the tailplane.

The project suffered a major blow, however, when Petter suddenly resigned in December 1949 after his demands for greater autonomy for his Lightning Design Team were not met. Freddie Page took over as Design Team Leader for the English Electric P.1, for which the Ministry of Supply had issued Specification F23/49 and subsequently expanded the scope of ER103, to include fighter-level maneuvering.

On 1st April 1950, English Electric then received an official contract for two flying and one static airframe.

The aerodynamicists at the government-led Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) were deeply skeptical of swept wing concepts and so Short Brothers in Belfast were contracted to produce the Short SB.5. Built between 1950 – 52, the Short SB.5 was to prove the design of both the wing and the tailplane and to fully assess overall flight handling. It was effectively a low-speed highly unorthodox, adjustable wing research aircraft, designed so that different wing sweep angles could be tested by a single aircraft. After testing a range of wing and tail configurations, on 2nd December 1952, it was agreed that Petter’s 60-degree wing sweep specification was indeed the most effective.
General characteristics

Crew: 1
Length: 55 ft 3 in (16.84 m)
Wingspan: 34 ft 10 in (10.62 m)
Height: 19 ft 7 in (5.97 m)
Wing area: 474.5 sq ft (44.08 m2)
Empty weight: 31,068 lb (14,092 kg) with armament and no fuel
Gross weight: 41,076 lb (18,632 kg) with two Red Top missiles, cannon, ammunition, and internal fue
Max takeoff weight: 45,750 lb (20,752 kg)
Powerplant: 2 × Rolls-Royce Avon 301R afterburning turbojet engines, 12,690 lbf (56.4 kN) thrust each dry, 16,360 lbf (72.8 kN) with afterburner
Performance

Maximum speed: Mach 2.27 (1,500 mph+ at 40,000 ft)
Range: 738 nmi (849 mi, 1,367 km)
Combat range: 135 nmi (155 mi, 250 km) supersonic intercept radius
Ferry range: 800 nmi (920 mi, 1,500 km) internal fuel; 1,100 nmi (1,300 mi; 2,000 km) with external tanks
Service ceiling: 60,000 ft (18,000 m)
Zoom ceiling: 70,000 ft (21,000 m)
Rate of climb: 20,000 ft/min (100 m/s) sustained to 30,000 ft (9,100 m) Zoom climb 50,000 ft/min
Time to altitude: 2.8 min to 36,000 ft (11,000 m)
Wing loading: 76 lb/sq ft (370 kg/m2) F.6 with Red Top missiles and 1/2 fuel
Thrust/weight: 0.78 (1.03 empty)
Armament
Guns: 2× 30 mm (1.181 in) ADEN cannon
Hardpoints: 2 × forward fuselage, 2 × overwing pylon stations, with provisions to carry combinations of:
Missiles: 2× de Havilland Firestreak or 2 × Red Top (missile) on the fuselage
Other: 260 imp gal (310 US gal; 1,200 L) ferry tanks on wings

#lightning #Aircraft #interceptor

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30 thoughts on “English Electric Lightning | The British Cold War Supersonic Interceptor And Jet Fighter”

  3. My absolute all time favourite aircraft. Being born in 1964, once reality had set in and astronaut and test pilot were looking dubious I was going to settle for being an English Electric Lightning pilot.
    It's the first plane I could identify and name and my bedroom ceiling was a somewhat congested airspace with Airfix EE Lightning's everywhere. Each one slightly better than the previous one as I grew up and got the hang of modelling.
    Ok, gotta do a few things then I'll settle down to watch this.
    I hope you got the accidental flight by the mechanic in there! Oh! And the popping up to intercept the SR71s just to piss off the yanks! 😆

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  5. A Stonking documentary but please alter the stats of the Lightning as these are from the early models.

    The EEL being a test bed development aircraft had many alterations and upgrades during it's service.

    The later BAC F53 Lightnings weighed less than 26,000 lbs and the the RR Avons 302 C's produced over 40,000 lbs of thrust in an aircraft with 25% less drag than most other aircraft, giving it exceptional speed and acceleration in a fully aerobatic frame

    The Lightnings:

    Were capable of reaching over 87,000 ft.
    Could climb over 15,000 feet in a 5G turn sustaining 450 knots.
    Reached 30,000 ft from brakes off in less than 90 seconds
    First operational aircraft that could "Supercruise"

    The story is that in 1974 the RAF used an EEL to "bounce" the SR71 as it was setting a record for crossing the Atlantic.

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  6. This is ironic. A guy that even flew the airplane thinks it was designed as a supersonic "fighter", when it was really a "point defense interceptor" in the mold which so many viewers of this channel mistakenly claim the F-104 was. It did start out as a test aircraft, but was put into production for a narrow critical role.

    The Lightning was initially built to defend Britain's strategic nuclear V-bomber airfields from enemy attack. It had a pathetically small intercept radius, but the plan was that it would quickly get out to intercept the first wave of enemy bombers, fire its missiles, then quickly return to base and refuel and rearm in time to launch and intercept a follow-on wave of bombers. It didn't have enough fuel for tactical fighter air superiority missions. It was actually ordered to fill in for the roll of a surface-to-air missile system that was being designed to defend the V-bomber bases.

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  7. This is one of the Cold War planes that doesn't get the 'glory' like it's Western counterpart, the F-4 Phantom II. But it should. It's an amazing work of form and function. Why fight yaw conditions in an engine-out scenario when your engines are aligned one over the other instead of the old side by side? THAT right there is thought #1 that makes this airplane leaps ahead of anything that came before, during, or after. Centerline dual propulsion is a much more stable and safer way to go for dual jet aircraft imo.

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  9. An old friend of mine did an exchange tour with 74 Squadron in its' early days. He stated you could get somwhere very fast, but it had at most 45 minutes of endurance.
    He also had a considerable amount of time in the F-106 Delta Dart. Like most who flew it he had a great regard for the Dart.

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  10. No one seems to mention how all this must have looked to the east bloc.

    Are you sure that the US has Europe's interest at heart ??

    Why did the UK supply it's most advanced weapons to potentially hostile powers like Salafist harbouring Saudi Arabia.

    Clever Technical chaps, their worst enemy are politicians.

    None seem to have much political nowse.

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  13. I wonder if he's thinking of Lockheed's F80 instead of an F104. I believe NATO had a trainer version of the F80 operational in the late '60s. In 1958 the J79 powered F104 bested Gruman's modified Prototype F11F-1F Super Tiger (also J79 powered) altitude record of 76,939 feet with a record 103,389 ft. But being an ill handling fuselage wrapped J79 with loaded stubby wings either the Lightning or Super Tiger would've handled it in anything that became a turning fight I'd be betting. . . . at least at 40,000 ft they would.

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  15. The Messerschmitt 262 only had swept wings to accommodate the Jumo engines. Because the engines were slow to arrive, Messerschmitt moved the engines from the wing roots to underwing pods, allowing them to be changed more readily if needed. The engines proved heavier than anticipated and the wing was swept by 18.5 degrees, to accommodate a change in the center of gravity.

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  18. In terms of Aviation & Jet technology, the British were in a great position in 1945. But in financial terms Britain was almost bankrupt, unlike america. Which had all it's wartime manufacturing capacity & research facilities running at full power. Then British governments of both stripe just kept cancelling its best technology projects JUST as they were about to deliver great results. However British governments DID pour it's limited funding into developing atomic and hydrogen bombs. Only to cancel the Black Arrow rocket program JUST as it was delivering superb results. Britain has always had utter rubbish in government, it STILL has.

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  29. English Electric Lighting! There’s a title you could not say in the 21st century ! English? You have to say British now! Unless your Welsh or Scottish of course

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