What if more Lightnings were exported?

[Lawman]

Excellent! (He says in a Mr Burns voice)

One thought: switch from Avons to the RB106 Thames, which was designed to fit in any Avon engine space, but with a heck of a lot more thrust. Obviously this would mean burning fuel faster in full afterburner, but crucially, the Thames doesn't need to be in afterburner anything like as often/much. With 16,000lbs dry thrust, the 'new' Lightning has 32,000lbs of combined dry thrust, i.e. a thrust to weight ratio of something like 2:3 (which is quite good by any measure), and 44,000lbs in reheat (i.e. almost 1:1). The full delta should add a fair bit of fuel, so some of the range issues should be helped. Add in some 'pouches' on the fuselage (along the tops of the intakes and fuselage) and underside (a more elegant version of the Lightning's underbelly conformal tanks), and you boost fuel load a fair bit.

[Hobbes]

Wow, that's an imposing-looking aircraft. Well-executed build, too. The intakes look much better than on the swing-wing proposal that's been shown around here, and I like the twin Red Top missile rails.

[BlackOps]

Spinners, that looks great! 

[Wyrmshadow]

It looks like India's LightWeightFighter.

[dy031101]

Ingredients: Matchbox F.6, Foxbat nose, 1/48 scale MiG 21 wings and a bit of filler!

Just the way to make it look good 

[Zen]

Wow!

[Lawman]

Just for a laugh, it might be interesting to consider a Mirage IV'd version of that full delta Lightning. Scale it up, and switch to four engines - in a two by two arrangement - and more fuel. The scale-up should add a lot of fuel (by increasing the thickness and area of wings, thus wing tanks), so give it a very impressive range, and the four engines would give it a lot of capability (64,000lb dry and 88,000lb in reheat). It could have been a super-TSR-2, with good abilities for both land attack (a nuclear cruise missile based on the ADM-20 Quail, but with a BS Viper engine and terrain following radar?) and anti-shipping.

There could be one bomber wing in the North, and one in the South, say, Kinloss or Lossiemouth and Marham? The Northern one would be responsible for anti-shipping and nuclear strike aimed at Murmansk etc... The Southern wing would be responsible for the tactical strike role, i.e. over the German plains etc... At the same time, there would normal Lightning fighter wings based alongside them, probably two wings for the North, two for the South, and one or two over Germany. There would then be tanker units co-located with these units, to extend the range of the fighter units, and to support the bombers. The same would be true of AEW aircraft, with a unit in the North and South, perhaps using a common AEW aircraft with the Royal Navy, or even just the same radar system.

[Hobbes]

There have been a few profiles of an aircraft with that engine arrangement (2x2).
(edit) Bingo! Found it:
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,11874.0/highlight,armstrong.html

[SPINNERS]

Spinners, that looks great! 

Thanks! I've put it on here before with a backstory that's lurking on a back-up disc somewhere.

With hindsight, I wish I'd done it as a two-seater... with a T-tail!

[Lawman]

I do like the general concept, though I suspect a Mirage IV-type enlarged version of Spinner's full-delta Lightning. If given four afterburning RB-106 Thames, then it should be in approximately the same sort of class as the Russian Tu-22M (probably with that type's range issues too!). In fact, the side-view of the Vanquish would be approximately right, but I would hope for a pretty big delta, and at least Mach 1.6 capability.

The ability to carry a good number of anti-ship or anti-radar missiles would be good too, possibly a common British multi-purpose missile design, similar to the American Standard Missile series - anti-ship, anti-radar, surface-to-air, air-to-air and air-to-ground versions could all be built, with both conventional and nuclear versions of each! Obviously it would not be the primary air-to-air or anti-ship missile, but would be used when appropriate (since Martel and Skyflash respectively would be cheaper). This size of bomber should be able to carry around four missiles on the fuselage, either internally or semi-recessed, and potentially more on the wings. One large missile under each wing could also be possible, potentially allowing them to fly strike missions with a British Skybolt equivalent under each wing, and a load of anti-radar missiles.

[Mossie]

Gotta love the 2x2 over & under configuration!  This is the Myasishchev M-20-18:

[SPINNERS]

Here's the backstory for the delta winged Lightning....

The English Electric Lightning first entered service with No. 74 Squadron of the RAF in 1960 and although it proved to be a successful point defence interceptor the end user asked English Electric to remedy the type's two biggest deficiencies – poor range and barely adequate radar performance.

With the creation of BAC in 1960 the former English Electric team at Warton continued with the steady progression of the basic type through the F2, F3 and F6 marks but the basic layout was rapidly approaching the limit of it's growth potential. A small study group at Warton were therefore asked to come up with a redesign to tackle the range and radar deficiencies with the project becoming known as the Lightning FX (extended range).

Their chosen design used a delta wing that would give greater wing area and greater integral fuel capacity whilst remaining thin enough for high supersonic performance. The study group quickly realised that the radar performance was limited by the small diameter available by the nose intake position and decided to adopt side-mounted semi-circular intakes to free up the nose area for a much larger radar dish.

The cancellation of TSR.2 in April 1965 left BAC reeling but a lifeline was given to them when the Lightning FX was selected for immediate development and production although this good news was tempered by the cancellation of the last 18 Lightning F6's. At the same time a programme of converting all F2's and all F3's to a common F6 standard was announced. The controversy surrounding all military aircraft programmes meant that a new name could not be selected for the new aircraft so the official designation of Lightning F7 was given although service pilots would refer to it as the 'Super Lightning'.

To power the Lightning F7 Rolls Royce was given a contract to develop a growth version of the Avon with modified engine accessories to avoid the staggered engine arrangement of the earlier marks and development progressed smoothly with the new Avon 320 engine being flown in the Vulcan test bed in 1966. In their production version these engines were rated at 12,000lbs dry thrust and 17,500lbs with reheat and the superb intake design and unique crossover ducting made for trouble free handling although specific fuel consumption was still higher than an equivalent modern turbofan. The powerplant and wing configuration meant that 'supercruise' was still possible but only in a clean configuration. 

In May 1965 Ferranti was asked to produce a new radar for the Lightning F7 but the timescale requested by the Air Ministry would mean that this would be little more than a scaled up A.I.23. Despite this Ferranti produced the superb A.I.25 radar which introduced a 30-inch dish size, a much extended detection range and increased automation to ease the pilot workload and this was test flown in a Canberra in early 1967.

Development progressed swiftly and the first prototype (XR752 a converted F6) was first flown on October 31st, 1969 with Roland Beaumont at the controls. This was followed by XR755 on December 24th and the two prototypes initially concentrated on airframe and engine development with the radar performing faultlessly in the test Canberra. XR755 would eventually be upgraded to full service standard but XR753 was destined to remain with BAC/British Aerospace as a test aircraft until 1983 with RB199's and 27mm Mauser cannon being tested as part of the Tornado programme.

Production commenced in late 1970 with No. 43 Squadron taking first delivery and re-forming in June 1971 based at Leuchars in Scotland. At this time No. 74 squadron were flying Lightning F6's but disbanded in Tengah in September 1971 and a new No. 74 squadron was immediately formed in October 1971 also at Leuchars to fly the F7.

In service the aircraft was not quite the sprightly performer that the earlier marks were but it was a much more effective interceptor especially at high altitude where the large wing area meant that it could actually out-turn the F6 although the pride of place on the notice board at RAF Gutersloh were pictures of silhouetted F7's caught by the gun-cameras of the F2A's of RAF Germany.

Production would eventually total 169 aircraft with the last being flown from Warton on February 28th 1974 and the type served with a total of eight UK based RAF squadrons (5,11, 23, 29, 43, 56, 74, 111) before being replaced by the Tornado F3 in the late 1980's.

[Lawman]

Just as an aside, it seems to me that what we are talking of doing to the Lightning (a very Mig-21 looking jet) is actually somewhat analogous to the Chinese J-8-II, which is basically just the equivalent derivative of the Mig-21 (or J-7). This is not necessarily a good or bad thing though....

Photo from http://www.airforceworld.com/pla/j82.htm

[glanini]

Here is my proposal for exported Lightnings

Late Rhodesia



India



Singapore



Canada



South Africa



Early Rhodesia



Regards

[jcf]

Nice, except that the Canadian bird would not have had the Red Ensign on the tail in 1968, the fin flash would be the Maple Leaf flag.

Jon