English Electric Lightning-Great Britain's First Supersonic Fighter/Interceptor.Classic Documentary.

zero sixty six twenty seven thousand skate two thank two live group bullseye one zero zero sixty seven twenty five thousand spades one hustle the 14th of october 1947 captain charles chuck yeager of the united states air force climbed aboard his bell x1 aircraft slung beneath the b-29 super fortress following his release he levelled off at 40 000 feet above the mojave desert and fired the third of the aircraft's four rockets initially the ride was rough in control almost non-existent then as he neared the speed of sound mach 1 the ride smoothed out and control was regained quickly the needle went to one point naught two paused several seconds and then jumped to one point not six and that was it chakiaga had earned his place in history as the first man to pierce the dreaded sound barrier although news of the achievement was largely ignored even suppressed it only served to show just how much ground the british had lost in the quest for supersonic flight but it put [Music] the lightning however soldiered on until 1988 when numbers 5 and 11 squadrons traded in their lightnings for tornado f3s 40 years after the original requirement had been formulated the lightning which was created at the beginning of the cold war had survived to witness its conclusion today the lightning is remembered for its blistering performance the performance that even some of the most advanced fighters in the world cannot match yet the lightning set more benchmarks in aircraft design and speed alone highly swept wings low tail planes they've all got all got them you can have a look look around all the jets the the um uh exotic russians f-16 um f-15 uh the um excluding the french which is another matter um the the ef uh ef 2000 they all have swept wings low tail plane and that that is a legacy of the lightning the lightning started the fashion and that's the way they'll always be unless you go to a pure delta i think that we had um hoped that we would go through the sun barrier and level flight as opposed to the screaming dive downhill i mean the hunter could um go through the sound barrier downhill and uh the american similarly in the saber et cetera but to go through it level flight that is an achievement and it was certainly at that time and i think it made every britain proud of every band that was involved in aviation anyway oh no i think the lightning is some a nice little milestone in our aviation history i think the legacy of the lightning as far as our royal air force is concerned is that it did bring technology to the forefront of the people that had to fly it service it operate it control it in the sector operations center it was a high-tech beastie for its time and luckily our very senior officers now both air crew and engineers were brought up with that concept so i think it probably made our air force much more or helped to make us technology conscious rather than frightened of technology that's just my view i would have thought that uh certainly in terms of recognition that you need an airplane with a dog fighting capability or an air combat capability that that's been seen to be a continuing requirement and we're now into eurofighter because with the if you like the the phantom and then the tornado f3 i haven't operated the tornado f3 know very little about it but reputedly it doesn't have it wasn't designed doesn't have that sort of capability also the need if you like for the supersonic dash is still seen to be there and aerodynamically i'm sure the lightning contributed to that [Music] [Music] two groups

Channel: Military Aviation TV

Views: 509,508

Keywords: Lightning, English Electric, English Electric Lightning, Royal Air Force, RAF, Binbrook, Germany, RAF Germany, Mach 2, Mach Two, Fighter, Interceptor, Afterburner, Reheat, Power, Red Top, Firestreak, Missile, United Kingdom, UK, Great Britain, England, America, Russia, Soviet Union, Cold War, Nuclear, Sidewinder, Bomb, War, Conflict, Manchester United, Fortnite

Id: 3N5a2WGHu5Y

Length: 6min 29sec (389 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 02 2019