Lightnings

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The English Electric Lightning has a lot to answer for. From the age of four I lived in Tunstead which is directly underneath the downwind leg of the circuit for RAF Coltishall. The Lightning was just entering service at that time. Each break from school whilst in the playground there would be a fairly constant stream of aircraft overhead. Initially from No 74 Squadron, then later No 226 Operational Conversion Unit.

When I was seven my parents took me to the RAF “At home day”, or “Battle of Britain Air Show” on “the base”. I was hooked, I sometimes think that my parents never forgave themselves for that day as it lead to a life chasing aircraft all over the country, and now the world.

Other aircraft have attracted my attention over the years, notably Lockheed’s F-104 Starfighter, but the Lightning was always the real aeroplane.

The Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum has a rather special Lightning in its collection. XG329 was built as one of the batch of pre-production, or production development, aircraft. These followed on from the three intermediate P.1B aircraft which had introduced the belly tank, to give a workable endurance, and armaments. The pre-production batch were initially designated P.1B, but then changed to F.1. These aircraft featured the full sized fin of the initial production aircraft.

Our English Electric Lightning XG329 first flew in April 1959 and is one of two surviving in the UK from the original 20 aircraft in the development batch; XG337 is displayed RAFM Cosford. In addition the cockpit of XG325 survives in the hands of a private owner in Norfolk.

In her original guise her main roles included supersonic ADEN gun-firing trials. She was then converted to F.3 standard for development work/flight trials. This included fitting the larger, square topped, fin. Development work included Data Link trials; Red Top missile trials, and TACAN navigation system trials.

The aircraft accumulated only 315 flying hours in the hands of test pilots including Roland Beamont and Jimmy Dell. We would be very interested to hear from anyone who has details of the test pilots who flew her, and when. Particularly we know that Desmond De Villiers and Johnny Squier flew her and would be interested in any details from their log books.

Following her flying days she was used for ground instructional purposes at the Royal Air Force College at Cranwell. She was then move underneath a Chinook helicopter to RAF Swinderby as a display aircraft to act as a backdrop to passing out parades by the new entrants.

Member Ian Hancock bought her in 1993 and she was transported, dismantled, to Flixton where she has been on display ever since.

The Lightning must be a truly iconic aeroplane as over 60 of the original 300+ built survive, a very unusual survival rate. These include two in South Africa and one in the United States that are being restored to flying condition and two in Bruntingthorpe that are regularly fast taxied.

The images below show:

in flight,
being photographed from above by a brave photographer (pre-drone days!), probably at Warton,
up on jacks at RAFC Cranwell as an instructional airframe,
being taken to RAF Swinderby by Chinook,
“hangar queen” at RAF Swinderby,
and at Flixton, having been completely dismantled for the journey by road in 1993 following purchase by member Ian Hancock, then rebuilt.
The final image shows the dramatic demise of stablemate XG332; thankfully, the pilot survived but received multiple injuries after crashing through the roof of a greenhouse.