Alicatt

In the normal flight regime the controls were limited in deflection as you could over g the airframe much too easily, only when the flaps and undercarriage were down the full control movement was accessible this was especially true about the ailerons and the aircraft's roll rate. In all flight regimes the controls are light and responsive except for the rudder pedals which needed a good bit of force, at extremes it could take up to 200lbs (90kg) force to give full deflection of the rudder, once the flaps and undercarriage were down an augmentation system lightened the pedal force to assist in low speed manoeuvring.

It's normal max g limitation in ordinary flight was 6g but it had enough excess thrust to sustain 8g manoeuvres at low level, above 36,000ft it ran out of thrust at slightly over 4g It wasn't just an isolated incident in intercepting the U2, it was part of a series of exercises to test the ability and write the doctrine for high altitude interceptions. The guys that actually flew the aircraft do say that the earlier Lightnings with the smaller tail got quite squirrelly at high altitude and that even tho they could exceed M2 they were limited to M1.7

Purely an interceptor? That must be why it could carry up to 6 1000lb bombs, 48 2" rockets in an internal store and upto 6 SNEB rocket pods carrying 144 rockets, as well as twin 30mm cannon and IR missiles for it's interceptor role. The Lightning F53 and T55 were used in the ground attack role by Saudi Arabia in 1969-1970 against Yemini.

Not quite true, the Folland Gnat is able to exceed Mach 1 in a dive and there are a few of them in private hands.

That is how I remember flying online when I had the time and so. A mission was planned each given a specific role in that mission whether it was SEAD, Strike, CAP, then the mission was briefed and specifics of what routes likely hotspots etc and timings for the various packages to arrive on target. That moment from the IP and heading in and seeing the other packages doing their bit taking out the air defence and making the way clear for us bomb trucks to lay down our gifts upon our foe. And when it all works as it did mostly it is great, but there was hours and hours of training leading up to these missions so we would work as a team.

Yeah was not so long ago too, May 2017. :( Around 2004 I was thinking of taking a trip to Thunder City and fly in the Lightning, I had the money getting the time was the problem and then my younger brother took ill and that was it Ach well. Still hoping one of the developers for DCS will make a Lightning as that's about the only way of getting something realistic to fly. I read some of the reports about the maintenance at Thunder city and am now starting to hear of similar "practices" at the one in Stennis about using aluminium piping where it should be stainless steel in the engine bay, I hope they are not true and that the proper materials have been used. There is a reason the CAA does not let the Lightning fly in the UK - apart from the fact that the RAF's jets cannot catch it ;)

RIP Dave Stock flying Lightning T5 ZU-BEX :(

And here in Belgium, once they can decide on a government we may get a decision on whether to get a Eurofighter or a F-35 to replace the F-16s Then again they may just decide to keep the F-16 :)

Wash your mouth out! ;) Beauty is in the eye of the beholder :) Who could say no to the first aircraft in the world to be able to supercruise? The prototype P1A WG760 managed to exceed Mach1 on the 4th August 1954 without the pilot realising, it was only after they checked the sensor data they found out, and it's engines never had reheat/afterburners. Officially it went supersonic a week later, it was limited to Mach1.51 The second prototype model the P1B was cleared for flights up to Mach2.

Of course, if Heatblur are going to make a Saab J35 Draken then there is some hope as the Draken used the same licence built Avon engine the RM6 and the RM6c is a slightly uprated Avon with 17,600lbf thrust about the same as the later Avon 302 that was fitted to some of the Lighnings. So it could share some of that work :) There is some hope ;)

That it would be. Just reading the stats posted by an ex-lightning pilot, his longest sortie was 8hrs 30 mins so with a bit of refuelling it can stay up there :) Today, 45 years ago was his last flight in the Lightning, and he had amassed 1023hrs 55 min flying them, from reading his log book his last flight he intercepted a Beechcraft Type 18 on a scramble.

Ferry ranges for the F.6 Lightning armed and unarmed with/without over wing tanks. https://forums.eagle.ru/attachment.php?attachmentid=215445&stc=1&d=1565772877 https://forums.eagle.ru/attachment.php?attachmentid=215446&stc=1&d=1565772877 https://forums.eagle.ru/attachment.php?attachmentid=215447&stc=1&d=1565772877 https://forums.eagle.ru/attachment.php?attachmentid=215448&stc=1&d=1565772893

As long as you had a tanker waiting for you at angels 30 :megalol: The lightning wasn't known for her long legs, even with one engine in idle it still didn't fly very far, and the over-wing tanks reduced her mach number to 0.93 as the aircraft ran out of control authority above that speed. There are a few tales of Lightnings being ferried to/from overseas and they had to get the tankers to slow down as the Lightnings could not keep up. Yes a most interesting aircraft :) Still, it is my favourite aircraft closely followed by the F-14. Even for my small frame the cockpit is quite small and cramped, there is a height limit for pilots based on the length of the femur, if it is too long you would leave your knees in the cockpit if you had to eject, as they would get hung up on the combing around the windscreen.

Absolutely, and the export model at that for the ground attack capability.

I use an Android Archos 101B, great little tablet at just over €100, no phone function but it has good WiFi. Like Eldur's Galaxy it is 1920x1200 and is great for films with Amazon Prime, Netflix and YT. I use the Kindle and Adobe Acrobat apps on it and keep my manuals on it, just downloaded Chuck's guide for the F-14 on to it to read. I have an older Kindle too but it is cumbersome to use compared with the Android.

Thank you for this :)

Tickets just arrived for the show :D There is also an open day for the locals at the airbase on the 14th Sept, probably with a flying display from the Low Land Tigers Meet as the base hosts that every few years. Last time I was there was in 2012.

Even in Ham Radio we use satellites to re-broadcast or repeat signals, tho most of them use a widely separated frequency input to output to prevent desensitising the receiver on the satellite.

Younger brother was a Radio Officer on an oil rig, one of the modes of communication he used was what is called Tropo-scatter, he described it as warming up a bit of sky hoping to bounce the signal over the horizon :)

SP, have tried DCS MP and it was ok but life and PC location preclude any online MP playing, had to give up playing Steelbeasts online as well, anything that requires voice comms is out of the question here. Some of my best memories were from flying MP with Freebirds VFW and Falcon 4, that first mission where I was part of a multi aircraft strike package on an enemy airfield, all coming in from different directions and all timed to the second will always stick in my mind. But that was nearly 20 years and a few countries ago :)

While relaxing in the pool today.

I have trouble playing it from that link above too, the direct link to the video is: Plays fine from YouTube.

It's that time again, time to get your tickets for the Sanicole Airshow 2019, they are on discount just now if you subscribe to their Insider newsletter. I have my tickets for my grandson and myself for Sunday. https://www.sanicole.com/en/

Yeah that is what was flying over my house yesterday. lots of activity with C-130s and F-16s some of the F-16s just had the stripes without the tail art. We had a really bad storm here last night and there has been no activity so far today, being only a few km from the airbase we had lots of trees down as well as branches all over the roads, it was interesting to say the least :)