English Electric Lightning T5

More thunder from the Lightning

Depending on your proclivity, there are many iconic aircraft for aviation fans to focus on and this seems to be the same for flight simmers too, who quite naturally tend to be aviation fans as well. These vehicles as I’m sure you know are wide ranging, from wooden and wirestrung biplanes such as the Sopwith Camel, to the fighters and bombers of World War Two or perhaps more recently the beautiful lines of the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon. Yet very few of us (of a certain age) will ever forget the unusual configuration and raw power delivered by the English Electric Lightning with its arrangement of two mighty Rolls-Royce Avon turbojet engines combined with the revolutionary 60 degree swept wings and a training capability enhanced by the side-by-side seating. Another innovation was its all-flying tail plane, described by Chuck Yeager as the single most significant contribution to the final success of supersonic flight. It was also a very impressive-looking aircraft, accentuated in many variants by a polished bare alloy fuselage.

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