A few more Lightning shots.

[steelsporran]

QUOTE (emfrat @ May 31 2014,5:43 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I was at Lawside Academy from 1961 to 1967. I lived in Perth, so the school ATC was not practical, but I wangled my way into a school ATC trip to visit the station anyway. A few of us got a quick "round-the-hangar" in a Westland Whirlwind, before Authority apparently took exception to the waste of fuel LOL. In 1968 I migrated to Oz.

I thought that was you! Didn't you see me wave?

[Splitpin]

QUOTE (emfrat @ May 31 2014,5:20 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Us Wise Ones used to place the biscuit mix on the runway, just beyond the Rotate point

.... such a scot

[Splitpin]

QUOTE (emfrat @ May 31 2014,5:00 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

For me, 'Lightning' means the EE one, and anything else is a pale imitation, even the P-38 which was a mighty beast.
My high school years were spent in Dundee, about 6nm north of RAF Leuchars, so we heard these regularly, and on BoB Day we saw them in action at the airshow.
You probably know R-R never quoted horsepower for their cars, just said it was "adequate" ; much the same applied to the Lightning - rate-of-climb was just stated as 'in excess of 50,000 ft/min'...
So there was just this tiny plane on the runway making a huge roar, then there was just two bright orange circles vanishing upwards, supersonic in a vertical climb - pure magic.

Magic indeed .... i would love to have been around in the UK at that time ...'in excess of 50,000 ft/min' It took the rest of the world years to replicate those kind of stats , and they never really did with the same style.