It's 'Recognising Former Colleagues On The News' Time Again

[major_clanger]

Blimey. Watching the news report on the Battle of Britain Anniversary Service earlier (my Skype call to darth_hamster was briefly interrupted by a four-ship of Tornadoes inbound to Westminster for the fly-past) I see that the lesson was given by the Chaplain-in-Chief to the RAF, the Reverend (Air Vice-Marshal) Ray Pentland. Who I remember as the newly-commissioned Rev (Flt Lt) Ray Pentland, CofE Chaplain to the Initial Officer Training Course at Cranwell back in 1990.

I seem to remember him being a bit skinnier in those days. Mind you, he was running round Stamford Training Area with us young officer cadets, so that's hardly surprising...

Comments

[nojay.livejournal.com]

"Stamford Trainging Area" -- first parsed as "Stamford Triaging Area" and I thought to myself that RAF selection must be really tough, even the SAS don't go quite as far as that.

A friend's father who ran a civil aviation business at Manston in Kent was able to lean on the OC RAF Manston a bit since he had been the OC's Flight Instructor back in the day. In the mid-80s this got him a shuftie at the Lightning that had just been flown in in preparation for it being decomissioned for fire training. His attempts to blag a quck test flight were rebuffed sadly even though he had a couple of thousand hours in the book on that particular model, an F6. His further attempts to put together a syndicate of mates to quickly raise a couple of million quid to buy and and fly it sadly also came to naught. It appears the RAF doesn't like the idea of privateers flying aircraft that can outrun anything in current front-line service.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Oops, typo fixed.

I seem to recall hearing through the grapevine that the CAA were content to licence subsonic jets (e.g. the Hunter, although I believe they can exceed Mach 1 in a dive) but draw the line at supersonic stuff, probably for the reason you suggest.

There were privately-owned Lightnings flying in South Africa until very recently, but the outfit that operated them has apparently gone into receivership (and lost one of its two-seaters in a fatal crash last year).
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[non-trivial.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard about the ZA Lightnings' problems - sad to hear.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

The RSA Lightnings also had problems with a lack of AVPIN for the engine starters. Apparently no-one (outside of maybe Russia or China) still makes the ghastly stuff.

I saw a Vampire fly overhead yesterday 8-) (Cotswolds) What a weird noise.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Ask the ground crew what it is that scares them most about the Lightning, and they'll probably say: "The tyres".

The aircraft has a very thin wing, and the undercarriage retracts into the wing, so the weight is supported on a very narrow tyre... Which.must therefore be inflated to a very high pressure.

I heard one of the old codgers at English Electric (the same chaps to ground-tested the engines running on coal dust) mention a figure of 40 atmospheres; I find that figure very difficult to believe. But then again, three patches of rubber 4" across is a very small area for a lot of weight.

As for the performance... I believe the F-22 can out-climb the Lightning. But nothing else can: shame about the 80-minute flight endurance.