The Frightening: English Electric Lightning Story

in 1960 the United Kingdom unveiled the English electric lightning the first and only jet capable of reaching Mach 2 speeds that the UK ever fully produced the supersonic fighter jet was packed with state-of-the-art technology including world first radar Tech the lightning also features an incredibly unique engine placement that contributes to its iconic look and insane join us as we learn how English electric lightning helped reshape the world of aerial combat The Prodigy behind the plane the story of the English electric lightning began with William Teddy petta or w.e.w petta Peta was born to a religious family in North London in 1908. Teddy would excel in school and eventually make his way to the gonville and keys College which is the fourth oldest constituent of the world-renowned Cambridge University the school itself has a history of churning out world-class Minds including 15 Nobel Prize winners determined to make his own Mark Teddy studied aircraft engineering and aerodynamics at College he immediately stood out from his peers and won the John Bernard Seeley prize in Aeronautics at the age of just 21. after graduating he took on an apprenticeship at his family's company the Westland aircraft Works where he gained experience working in every Department there better was hard at work creating Innovative designs for Westland but the UK air Ministry wanted submissions from Engineers with more experience Petter had only graduated a few years prior to pitching designs for the Westland pv7 multi-role aircraft but the Design's proven capabilities were enough to convince the air Ministry even though Teddy lacked experience Teddy helped design the pv7's inboard trailing Edge split flaps that opened above and below the wings to create drag and act as dive brakes after petta got the contract from the air Ministry he interviewed Pilots to iterate on the design and he took what he learned to create the Westland p-8 Lysander which entered service with the Royal Air Force One year before World War II broke out the Lysander was used to spot artillery drop messages and later for covert operations Behind Enemy Lines like recovering troops Petter would help design several other planes including the Whirlwind the welkin and the English electric Canberra after he joined English Electric in 1944. the Canberra was a medium bomber that used first generation jet engine technology Peta chose a unique design for the Canberra by placing the engines inside the wings using nay cells instead of the engines being attached to pylons below the wings or on the sides of the fuselage post-world War II designs after World War II had ended the British government wanted to divert military spending away from man's supersonic capable aircraft this shift in policy led to the cancellation of the highly secret miles m52 project however Peter knew that the future of flight would be shaped by supersonic designs and he believed Britain would need to keep innovating to stay on par with the world's superpowers because he knew he would run into trouble with the air Ministry Peter approached the ministry of Supply instead the MOs saw potential in Teddy's planes and issued an order for a single research aircraft that would fly at Mach 1.5 speeds at an elevation of 50 000 feet the original design of this new plane dubbed the p1a had a 40 degree swept Wing to clear the wings of the Mac Shockwave cone but Teddy and his team saw the potential for even better performance they swept the wings to 60 degrees and moved from a high-mounted tail plane to a low Mount opponents called the design dangerous but Teddy thought it would be necessary to reach even faster speeds of Mach 2 while also meeting new requirements for fighter level maneuverability the short sb5 was constructed to test Wing angles ranging from 50 to 69 degrees with both tail plane positions to determine if these radical designs would pan out and Teddy's configuration outperformed the rest capturing lightning in a bottle three new prototypes were constructed by 1953 and each were powered by Armstrong sitaly Sapphire turbo Jets which lacked afterburners originally the Rolls-Royce Avon was meant to power these models but the engine was delayed so Teddy and his team at English electric had to make do these early research models placed the engines in the fuselage which would reduce drag on the wings but it also took up all the space in the body of the aircraft to compensate the fuel had to be housed in the wings which meant these prototypes had very short flight times with an operational range of just 150 miles the p1b improved all aspects of the aircraft and it finally got the Rolls-Royce Avon engines that it was built around in 1954 one of the p1b test models achieved supersonic speed on its very first flight but the plane sensors gave a position error that caused it to report a lower speed but it officially broke the sound barrier on its third flight two years later and the p1b test plane earned the nickname lightning which would stick around for the rest of its development and it even became the official name of the plane after it was released as testing continued the English electric lightning proved it could beat the world speed record held by the Fairway Delta II in a single Direction but the lightning lacked the fuel capacity to remain at Max Speed for the return trip despite the success of the p1b the plane struggled with directional stability at Mach 1 speeds which prevented further testing to reach Mach 2. the British government was suddenly Under Pressure to get the lightning up to working order once it learned that the Soviet Union was working on its own jet project with the tupolev tu-22 Blinder the tu-22 was expected to cruise at Mach 1.2 with a top speed of Mach 1.5 which was faster than the Royal Air Force's Gloucester Javelin interceptors the Gloster Javelin also had a fatal flaw its primary missile was launched from the rear so if the tu-22 was in the lead the javelin couldn't intercept its Target the air Ministry began working on improved armaments to fire head-on and they began to research the combat effectiveness of the Bloodhound Mark II surface-to-air missile the Bloodhound was shown to be effective even against the speeds of the tu-22 but the tupolev was projected to enter service before the latest Bloodhound missile which meant Britain wouldn't have adequate defense against the new Soviet medium bomber to counter the threat the English electric lightning British interceptor attack behind Britain's interceptor in October 1958 the p1b was officially named the lightning and on November the 25th of the same year the lightning reached Mach 2 for the first time setting a new world record for British aircraft changes were made to the plane to improve its speed rate of climb and acceleration at the trade-off of range the lightning was equipped with an advanced ferranti A123 radar that fed data to the world's first heads-up display officially designated the radar Airborne interception Mark 23 the A123 was also the world's first monopulse radar previous radar systems used conical signals that could be jumbled by fast changes in signal strength which enemy Nations exploited with radar jammers the Lightning's first ever heads-up display was also a game changer since Pilots could see critical information without looking away from the canopy radar advancements meant that Pilots were receiving more verbal communication from radar operators but the Royal Air Force found that Pilots were struggling to make use of this information as they approached targets the Artificial Horizon of the Lightning's HUD was powered by a cathode ray tube or a CRT like the tubes used in bulky old televisions the CRT would project an image onto the canopy and the canopy itself had to be constructed with a special phosphor layer that would emit light when electrons from the CRT made contact with it over time the phosphor layer will eventually degrade and the light from the HUD will dim but despite its drawbacks the majority of Hud systems still use this technology today the lightning used notched Delta wings and it had a unique engine set up twin engines of the lightning were stacked and staggered in an over under position this setup gave the plane its unique fuselage shape and Teddy's originally controversial design could operate with the thrust of two engines but with a drag coefficient of roughly one and a half engines which was crucial for meeting speed requirements both engines were fed by a single nose Inlet with an inlet cone which created a single powerful shock wave that would reflect into the Twin Turbo Jets the English electric lightning was equipped with an interchangeable fuselage weapon system which gave the plane flexibility to use 48 2-inch unguided air-to-air missiles two Aid and 30 millimeter cannons or two de Havilland fire streak double AMS the plane also carried two Aiden cannons in front of the cockpit by default lightning strikes twice variations of the plane used larger Tail Fins that were more square and later models were equipped with the new Rolls-Royce Avon 301r engines the inlet cone was also reinforced to increase speed but these changes also further reduced the operational range of the lightning the UK also reactivated their blue Vesta program to develop a new missile named Red Top which was an air-to-air missile with upgraded Electronics thanks to Engineers switching from valves to transistors the Red Top also used first generation infrared seeking technology that was designed to exploit the heat emitted from planes flying at supersonic speeds Red Top could also fly farther with better mobility and it had a faster speed compared to the fire streak variants of the English electric lightning had access to these new missiles later versions also increased the fuel capacity by adding larger tanks that couldn't be jettisoned in 1960 the first lightning F1 model was sent to the 74 Squadron Frontline Command as the second Western European plane with supersonic capabilities in active service once there the lightning was meant to be scrambled to defend various airfields around the UK in spite of the Lightning's capabilities its complex design and electronic systems made the aircraft difficult to service but over time technicians got used to the plane and more were added to various squadrons bringing the total number of planes to 337 including the original prototypes as the years went by various versions were released including the F3 which was later converted to the F6 that removed the default cannons and added longer flight capabilities the lightning f-53 or the export lightning was a multi-role variant sent to Germany and other variants were sent to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia the lightning has also been used in several strange situations in 2010 physics Professor Brian Cox commissioned a flight in a South African lightning for the BBC TV program wonders of the solar system the crew relied on the refined Lightnings 60 000 foot service ceiling to take footage of the curvature of the earth and showcase different levels of the atmosphere the same plane crashed a month later during an air show so that's the story of one of the UK's fastest and most advanced Interceptor Jets lightning paved the way for the heads-up displays in use in virtually all major aircraft around the world and its radar system became the system other countries needed to emulate for years to come the lightning faced an uphill battle thanks to its strained design but it overcame its limitations to become one of the most renowned planes of all time and that's it for today's video how does the lightning stack up against your favorite plane let us know in the comments section while you're there you don't have to use a radar to locate and click that like And subscribe button but it sure helps the channel if you do thanks for watching and hit that Bell to catch the next Aviation video coming your way soon

Channel: Vapored Skies

Views: 148,588

Keywords: Vapored skies, aircraft, english electric lightning

Id: ZoG8OzjPDiE

Length: 13min 11sec (791 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 16 2022