Struck by Lightning

Recently, I attended a conference at the RAF Museum at Cosford. The actual conference facilities aren't great, but you do get to wander around the museum during the breaks. One of the halls has aircraft hanging from the roof, like Airfix models from a bedroom ceiling.

There was lots of stuff to interest an aircraft geek, but the one exhibit that stood out for me was the English Electric Lightning pictured above.

The design of this aircraft is so simple. Its basically two jet engines - mounted vertically, rather than horizontally - with a cockpit at the front. The wings and tail are swept in such a way that the result resembles a flying fish, of all things. 

This arrangement was so successful that the Lightning was the main interdiction fighter of the RAF for thirty years, finally being replaced by the Tornado - an aircraft which has never been considered adequate in that role.

The Lightning had a party piece which was often to been at airshows during the sixties and seventies - this was a vertical climb from rotation, followed by a "tail stand" before transition to level flight. 

Someone that I worked with many years ago told me how he had witnessed this display go badly wrong. The story went that the aircraft in question took off and climbed vertically into low cloud, then re-emerged a few seconds later travelling tail first. The pilot ejected - too late - as the aircraft hit the ground and exploded, killing him outright. What made this incident particularly memorable for my colleague - who was in the RAF at the time - was the fact that he was standing next to the pilot's wife.

Anyway, the images here were made with my Nokia 1020, with some post-processing in GiMP.