It's a Lightning, Jim, but not as we know it!

[CammNut]

Long, long ago in a parallel universe far, far away, the Lightning turned out not quite the way we know and love. Despite flying the Short SB5 to prove the highly swept wing was flyable, the boffins at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) remained sceptical of English Electric's claims for the P.1.

They were, however, enamoured of a design Vickers-Supermarine was working on. This did not have the suspect highly swept wing. It had a moderately swept wing and a foreplane. This promised slower, safer landing speeds. It was a larger aircraft, able to carry more fuel for longer endurance, and a bigger radar for longer range. But it had integrated rockets and promised a climb performance to intercept Soviet bombers even higher than the P.1's.

At the insistence of the RAE "experts", the Ministry of Supply turned away from English Electric and the P.1 and awarded a contract to Vickers-Supermarine to develop its rival design. The resulting supersonic fighter entered service with the Royal Air Force as the Lightning F.1.

on Flickr

First, a hat-tip to tc2324 and his creation (http://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php/topic,40710.0.html) inspired by Vickers' Type 559 proposal for operational requirement F.155. But what led to this build was a profile by Jose Fernandes that appeared on this site, for the Lightning-based, 559-inspired Vickers Sea Eagle naval fighter. This showed me how a Lightning could be transformed.

on Flickr

So this build began with an old 1/72 Hasegawa Lightning F.6 kit. The nose was cut off, the fuselage sawed in half lengthwise and plastic strip inserted to stretch the fuselage vertically. This provided enough depth to fit a chin intake (two F-4 inlets glued back-to-back and flipped upside down) under a new forward fuselage (from a Mirage 2000, stretched width-wise to fit the Lightning fuselage).

on Flickr

Missile bodies were inserted into the gap between the engines created by the vertical stretch and a "beaver tail" fashioned to close out the fuselage. The wings come from an Airfix F-4, outer dihedal removed, span reduced and control surfaces rescribed. The wingtip fins are made from Lightning tail feathers. The fuselage spine was cut off and stretched to extend it forward to match up with the new cockpit position and aft to form a brake parachute housing.

on Flickr on Flickr on Flickr

The canard foreplanes were cut from the outer sections of the Lightning's wings, complete with the leading-edge notches, which help with the period look. The main landing gear bays were formed by cutting a section out of the belly tank and inserting the bay structure from an F-16. A bay for the nose gear was created by building a plastic-card box inside the large area of putty fairing the new chin inlet into the belly tank. The Firestreak missiles missiles were attached, Vickers 559-style, to the upper fuselage.

on Flickr

The color scheme and markings for a 74 Sqn. Lightning F.3 at RAF Leuchars (the site of many airshows of my youth) came from an Xtradecal Lightning sheet (X72-097). The roundels, fin flashes and numerous stencils came from Airfix's new Lightning kit (and they went on well). The aircraft was painted in rattle-can Tamiya gloss aluminum and black (matted for the radome and anti-dazzle panel).

[Martin H]

cool build. and stunning back story. 

Its amazing how some of us will use half a dozen seperate kits to creat one final model. Your spares box must be over flowing after this one.

[kitnut617]

Fantastic kit bash   

[Weaver]

Wow, that looks great - superb bit of work! 

[The Rat]

That is some serious plastic surgery, and worth every bit! 

[Firefox]

Very nicely done!  How do you do the silver scheme? Is it paint or foil?

[andrewj]

Wow ! , that's a super build , really like this one.

Andrew

[rickshaw]

Very nice indeed!   

[Rick Lowe]

Nice job. 

[Cobra]

Superb Build forgive me for Say so but, this Looks like Something from a Gerry Anderson show like Thunderbirds,Stingray,Captain scarlet,or Joe 90! Keep up the Superb work Dan

[Dizzyfugu]

This is sexy. 

I always wondered what the landing gear of this aircraft might look like, since any illustration or model I have seen so far had its legs tucked up. Very cool build, and i like the scheme, too. 

[Steel Penguin]

    Zoot ! that's a nice looking thing. 

[Gondor]

Very elegant 

Gondor

[NARSES2]

Stunning 

[PR19_Kit]

Totally AWESOME!