English Electric Lightning - the F-22 of 1958

[@HardThrasher]

There have been, I suppose somewhat inevitably, a few folks who have decided to sound off about how they think Russia should either win the war in Ukraine, or Ukraine brought the invasion on themselves, or the West shouldn’t arm Ukraine. To those people I simply say this. Fuck. Off. This video is not a place for your bullshit, so you’ll just get your comment removed and your account banned. This is your only warning.

[@dirkbonesteel]

If you didn't speak like a conservative nun I would watch more. Fucking stop holding back. CURSE MORE

[@michaelleslie2913]

I still can't believe that in these awful times that there are complete and total cock holsters who spout this poisonous drivel . SLAVA UKRAINE 🇺🇦

[@Mungobohne1]

Agreed, they started this war a long time ago and will face the consequences and will hopefully lead towards a more United EU+UK an the forming of a common military/defense union.

[@enricomigliorini9612]

That's how it's done, milord, zero tolerance for the vatniks. No time to waste on their nonsense. Well done.

[@KellAnderson]

If I might make a suggestion, Van Balion has started a "Pin of Shame" on his videos making fun of Sovereign Citizens. He will find one, either the idiot who lost his window or someone who drank the kool-aid, and pin it so that his community can use them as a piñata. Do here what we've done to first CasaLaPaula and now PLUTO_HAS_COME_BACK over on the r/AntiWar subreddit. It really is quite fun.

[@samuel_excels]

My one complaint about this episode is that, like the average flight time of the Lightning, it was over all too quickly. Despite that it was another excellent episode!

[@ferdievanschalkwyk1669]

But it went like a Lightning. Hard, fast and very noisy!

[@gordonsmith4884]

The Mem says much the same of myself…or then again maybe not.

[@maxiggy8069]

Loved it as well. I feel like, much like the lightning, more missiles would have been an improvement.

[@kimleechristensen2679]

My only complaint is that good Lord, has not made a music montage video with the full length Guitar riff song, showing none stop clips of the Lightnings going full tilt at low level, mixed in with some zoom climbs 😊😊😊😊😊

[@gordonsmith4884]

@@kimleechristensen2679 Oh my Lord, YES!

[@ferdievanschalkwyk1669]

I saw the last flying examples of these operated by Thunder City in Cape Town in 2005. They also set the climb to altitude record for the lighning that day. Modern fuels and an obsessive group of engineers looking after them can go a long way. 102 second from brakes off to 9km altitude. They broke the sound barrier going straight up and got a lot of complaints from those residents with poorly mounted windows. Rocks jumped about 15cm off the tarmac with that boom. That was not the only life changing experience that I had that day, as I proposed to my wife at that airshow. Clearly suffering from some PTSD of the sonic boom, she said yes.

[@rhodaborrocks1654]

I remember them well, we often used to see them in the skies around Cape Town. They had two in operation as I recall plus an assortment of other ex military fighters, however they sadly lost one of the Lightnings with the pilot at an air show not far from here and the whole operation was shut down, none of them have flown since.

[@ferdievanschalkwyk1669]

@@rhodaborrocks1654 in 2003 they actually had 4 of them and flew a 4 ship at the airshow. They had to strip 2 of them for parts to keep the last two flying.

[@rhodaborrocks1654]

@@ferdievanschalkwyk1669 Thank you for that information. They set off a sonic boom at an air show here one Saturday afternoon, I think this was around 2008 or 2009. I was balanced precariously on the roof of my house at the time doing some repairs and did a face plant on the tiles when that went off, didn't know what was happening !!

[@Kayback]

I was actually working the day they did that record attempt. It was a great plane for special events. Sadly I was also at TFDC Overberg for the crash of ZU-BEX although as a spectator this time. Dave was a great pilot and a good guy to work with. They've only just finished removing the Hunters and the cannibalized Lightnings from the property of the old Thunder City. The Bucc left on a flatbed a while ago, going to Port Elizabeth IIRC. I'll look through my camera roll later and try find my pictures.

[@garethbarry3825]

I loved reading this comment😊

[@ivanthemadvandal8435]

Ahh yes, the jet that even a mechanic can fly. Looking foward to this.

[@richardvernon317]

The Bloke who flew it unauthorised was a Wing Commander Engineering Officer who had done formal RAF Flying Training at the start of his Service. He got massive PTSD after the event.

[@MsZeeZed]

Tbf Wing Commander Taffy Holden did have his RAF wings, just in a 1940s 120kn prop plane.

[@richardvernon317]

@@MsZeeZed Harvard was the most powerful aircraft he had flown before his F Mk 1 Flight. Late Husband of a Woman involved with my old ATC squadron was the Chief Tech who signed the aircraft that Holden flew off the BAC pilot who delivered it to AFDS at Coltishall when the RAF got the aircraft (Jimmy Dell was the BAC Pilot if memory serves). XM135 is now at Duxford. When I first heard the story in 1982 at RAf Binbrook, the rank of the Engineer was not said and the story had him sitting on a box in an aircraft with no canopy fitted. In fact Holden was strapped to an Ejection Seat which had been pinned for servicing, thus he couldn't eject. The aircraft had no lid on it however and no working radio comms either.

[@robertwilloughby8050]

And one of Taffy Holden's best friends was.... Mr Pollock! The guy who flew a Hunter through Tower Bridge!

[@ianmangham4570]

He was a pilot , he kept his head because he had no chance of ejecting and no comms,so he circled immediately and brought her down perfect. Amazing and it gave him alot of stress after the event.

[@chriswoodend2036]

Whoever said Lazerpig let us down with the referral to short lectures by what I dare say is the last true gentlemen in the whole of England should be ashamed of themselves. Lord HardThrasher will be one of those names that stands. This is fucking brilliant.

[@Shenaniganator101]

The dude who said Lazerpig let us down is idk how to say this nicely stupid as hell this channel is legit incredibly entertaining and the way lord hard thrasher presents it is incredibly hilarious

[@capn82]

The swine is usually spot on.

[@padraig6200]

Can you point me to where LazerPig refers to this channel? I can't recall hearing it

[@chriswoodend2036]

@@padraig6200 kzbin.info/www/bejne/aXi7pIqCoNV_e5Y

[@kurtwicklund8901]

Masterful use of language is undoubtedly boring in inverse proportion to IQ.

[@gordonfrickers5592]

There is a misunderstanding about the lightening's wings. Their purpose was to keep the nav lights apart.

[@musicalaviator]

A place to put the landing gear and some fuel

[@STScott-qo4pw]

😂😂😂😂

[@quentinking4351]

Fun fact: the Lightning practiced intercepting U-2s at 65,000+ feet on ballistic arcs. During a NATO wargame they were deemed to have succeeded and the Americans weren't allowed to fly the U-2 for the rest of the exercise.

[@richardvernon317]

Load of Bollocks, U-2 were not pulled from any exercise because some RAF hot heads bounced them in an exercise. Exercises don't work that way.

[@sietuuba]

@@richardvernon317 From what I've gathered, the point of exercises is to let everyone train by working each of their jobs in a semi-realistic setting so even if the lesson from some piece of the simulation is that some unit got thrashed, it's not like they get told to go and sit it out the rest of the time the exercise goes on. Their supporting elements would be denied their chance to do their parts as well, so, if necessary they might just reset the whole thing. In this case perhaps the Americans were merely denied use of any intel based on the U-2 flights for the duration but whoever had the jobs of developing the films, and creating the resulting intel product, _probably_ did their parts normally!

[@unclenogbad1509]

@@richardvernon317 No, it sounds kosher. The Americans are notoriously sore losers, and would very likely have sat and sulked if their magnificat had been whipped in this way. If they thought it would happen over again (which it would have), they would certainly have pulled out rather than face a further trouncing. Witness the NATO exercises where Vulcans walked through their air defences and 'bombed' New York. Everything was just hushed up, and the Americans refused even to discuss it. When the exrercises were run again, and all the 'attacking' B-52's interdicted, the Vulcans again succeeded, but this time one of therm landed very publicly at NY's military airfield to make a rather cavalier show of it.

[@neilturner6749]

@@richardvernon317agreed re the bollocks “fun fact”. U2s never even took part in any NATO wargames during the Lightning era as far as I’ve read. TR1s with ground radar and a semi-tactical mission didn’t come into service until the mid to late 80s, the preceding U2 models were not assigned to tactical work so I can’t imagine they’d be relevant to wargames.

[@richardvernon317]

@@neilturner6749 TR-1A first operational mission at RAF Alconbury in early July 1985. Lightning phased out of service in 1988. I very much doubt Hales intercepted a U-2 over Upper Heyford as to do so would have meant he was supersonic and a lot of people would have heard the bang!!!! RAF did play against U-2's with Lightnings in an official trial in 1962. The Concorde intercept is true, it's in the Squadron Ops record book and does get a minor mention in the ORB of the radar station that controlled the intercept. Lightnings did play with the U-2's while on APC in Cyprus.

[@vicedrn]

Hey HardThrasher, don't listen to the haters. I've always found your videos to be not just well-researched, but also profanely fucking hilarious. You have a very particular sense of humor that goes as well with military history as well as potato chips go with chocolate- that is to say, you don't think it should work, but it's far better than it has any right to be. Keep it up, this channel will be huge someday.

[@princeoftonga]

Oh yes. Can’t wait. The last pure interceptor fighter and an absolute beast of an aircraft. This thing has a special place in the hearts of any British schoolboy of the 60s and 70s and any aviation enthusiast since!

[@Raptor747]

Last pure interceptor? The MiG-25 says hi.

[@charlyspor7594]

​@@Raptor747to be fair the foxbat is a piece of garbage so not really comparable

[@princeoftonga]

@@Raptor747 During development of the MiG-25 the Soviet authorities saw the proposed aircraft had high speed and relatively long range (the USSR being a large country) and ordered changes so it could be modified into a reconnaissance aircraft. So I don’t really class the 25 as a pure interceptor.

[@sichere]

It was not an Interceptor - it just happened to excel in that role.

[@richardvernon317]

@@sichere Mig 25 interceptors were interceptors, the Recce Birds were Recce Birds.

[@thespacedwarf]

God I'm so glad I found this channel. The dry wit is perfectly toned, the history is accurate and tastefully delivered, and it has just the right amount of swearing I look for in a video about military aircraft. And props to you for raising awareness to Ana's cause, while we all get caught up in the larger scale forms of aid, we sometimes forget the smaller essentials, like safety gear, generators, food and medicine - all the better to ensure as many Ukrainians as possible alive and well (with reasonably intact hearing) to watch the moment the last russian leaves Ukraine's borders.

[@clusterduck1569]

My great uncle worked as an engineer for the Saudi Lightnings. In terms of landing, he said that even the very best pilots could only squeeze about ten landings out of the tyres before they were shredded beyond recognition, turns out spooling up from 0 to 200mph in a split second isn’t very good for rubber. Although he worked on hydraulics, he became well acquainted with wheel changes as the fitters were always run off their feet. He experienced similar events when working on Vulcans in the RAF - as nearly half the aircraft needed disassembling to repair or replace a single part, all of which needed testing after reinstallation, nearly all the different fitters helped on nearly every job on the aircraft. He also used to enjoy taking naps in the air intakes and playing cards in the bomb bay.

[@IMCDundee]

In a crosswind reduce that to 2

[@tyutyu9331]

As a non native english speaker and huge aircraft nut who had limited knowledge about this plane I really enjoyed the humor and the information. Thank you.

[@dr.tankenstien]

As an American married to a Australian I absolutely love hearing this gentleman taking the piss out out of people that criticize him.... You would make an Australian Proud!

[@kylewhite5695]

Respect to HardThrasher for stopping the video to take the piss out of the Nazis, made my day

[@forresttucker168]

I myself as a young lad had an unnatural obsession with the English Electric lighting, and the F104 Starfighter, they were just badass.

[@waynesworldofsci-tech]

CF-104 - I’m a Canuck!

[@gordonreddy1214]

Youuuuu betcha...another Canuck (and the Arrow)

[@mettrisscomputeque8238]

I still do have an unnatural obsession with the Lightning at 50+

[@gowdsake7103]

Well the F104 was more dangerous to their pilot than the enemy

[@1anwrang13r]

The F104 is an unreasonably large engine with the minimum feasible airframe stretched around it. The Lightning is the same idea just with two engines instead of one. They're fantastic aircraft.

[@danield7510]

The pessimism of a Brit is something to be appreciated. An art form in itself

[@rawhorse]

We watched two Lightnings and two Harriers mock dogfighting over Baker’s Warren near Langdale End in North Yorkshire in the run up to the Falklands war. It was one of the most extraordinary things I have ever witnessed.

[@billballbuster7186]

A very hot interceptor as well as an excellent dogfighter. I first saw the Lightning in the early 1960s when a couple of them took off from RAF Leconfield, as we were passing the base on the way to Bridlington. It was a sight I will never forget and later I built the Airfix 1/72nd scale model, I was 10 years old. Lightning did not sell for two reasons, the first being that it was not really developed, in 28 years of service all they did was add a larger fuel tank and a couple of wing pylons! No weapons or electronics upgrades which would have helped a lot. The other reason is the Americans were selling the Lockheed Starfighter, a much inferior aircraft, by stuffing politicians pockets with cash. The most notorious aircraft bribery scandal of all time!

[@critic7127]

OMG so happy to see you shouting out Ukrainian Ana!!! Excellent video my dude!

[@rjmatthews62]

I used to work with a guy who had worked on the Lightning. His comment (in a broad Yorkshire tone) was "The Lightning was living proof that if you put enough power into a brick shithouse, it'll fly". And another quote I heard somewhere: "You'll notice, dear boy, that the only reason the Lightning has wings is to keep the navigation lights apart." An impressive aircraft.

[@Bluswede]

The bit about the nav lights caught me off guard...I'll be having aftershock chortles for days on that!

[@HardThrasher]

THe other common one was "It was perfectly under control until I released the brakes"

[@chrisaskin6144]

​@@HardThrasherWhen I was in the RAF, both my and the Lightning's service overlapped by about 17yrs. I was an armourer and began my post apprenticeship service by servicing Red Top missiles - albeit not for very long because I was switched to servicing Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles. But I remember the speed at which a Lightning landed was described to be as "not so much of a landing, more of a controlled crash."

[@SteveClark-ob1kj]

"Engines hotly pursued by an airframe."

[@doggogaming6895]

You could even fly it by accident

[@ProInSnow]

Lord Hardthrasher, Your Canadian subjects-..er I mean subscribers politely request another video of you voicing your passionate interest in aircraft. Please continue to keep your upload pace moderate and do not sacrifice quality for quantity no matter how hard the algorithm begs. We are immensely grateful for your indescribably good content. Sincerely, Your cold and distant serfs

[@marklittle8805]

We Canadians eagerly await his take on a few things

[@AonghasMcTavish]

The description upon yourself and your childhood love of the Lightning rings home with me, as I to fell in love with a cold war aircraft of the same period. The Avro Arrow. Now as a Canadian I may be slightly biased, I don't care, like the Lightning it was twin engined, exceeding fast, had to defend itself from the idea of nuke flack missiles, sadly it lost, and would have had a lot of firsts. Unfortunately we never got to see the Mark 2 fly. A real crime if you ask me. Unlike the Lightning it was gorgeous but also massive, but as a long range interceptor that's not really a problem. I got books models and movies pertaining to this thing. So I am really quite pleased that I got to hear about your favorite aircraft. I hope you can get to know mine.

[@europademon]

Well done HardThrasher. The premiere was a blast as well.

[@HoratioScaleModels]

Never came cross your channel before... I'n 2:48 in and you've just put a picture of the Lightning up, and I've already subscribed. Glorious.

[@LotharTheFellhanded]

Great video! I have always been fascinated by just the name of the aircraft, because you think the Electric Lightning part is the name, and it's just from England. English Electric is a lot like GE in America; they make everything from your fridge to the fighter plane radar to the nuclear power plants. The lineage of the Lightning does a lot to explain it's faults. A prototype test bed 1) doesn't need lots of fuel because we're not testing endurance, 2) doesn't need guns and missiles and space for them because this is just a test bed, and 3) doesn't need a more practical landing gear setup because fuck it, it's just a test bed.

[@HardThrasher]

Pretty much

[@geodkyt]

The "testbeds don't need much fuel, and it slipped into production that way" is sometimes blamed for the short legs of the F-18 Hornet family. The YF-17 prototype that lost the USAF Lightweight Fighter program to the F-16 had a very low fuel fraction. The program didn't envision long ranges anyway, and Hell, it's just a flight test prototype. When the Navy wanted a new strike fighter to replace the A-7, A-4, and the remainder of the F-4, and the Navy was under orders to select something cheaper than the F-14, they rejected the initial two offerings of a stripped F-14 and a navalized F-15 (both of which were too expensive and too large to get the air wing numbers they wanted), and chose the runner up from the USAF program (the F-16 being viewed as undesirable forncarrier use due to narrowness and one engine). So they asked Northrop to make a navalized version of the YF-17 with strike capability. But, with thee new systems required and the aircraft increased in size, even with additional fuel added, the range of initial F-18A was *less* than the YF-17...

[@joshuamcisaac1832]

I'm happy to get another video from ya so soon. It almost makes the 25hr wait and 1am release time liveable.

[@HardThrasher]

Arggh - yeah sorry for the weird timing for you - for me it's Friday night and I get to open a beer with folk

[@joshuamcisaac1832]

@@HardThrasher well, at 1am I'll do the classy thing and open an extremely cheap bottle of wine and raise a glass with you

[@20chocsaday]

Rain here from 1530 today.

[@gordonsmith4884]

Quite right, always a good idea to spend some time with the tenants from time to time. Keeps up morale. The beer helps keep the stench at bay and generally those that work on the land make formidable cricketers when there is a lack of gentlemen.

[@bobroberts6155]

As a more senior citizen I had the thrill of watching pairs of these beasts scrambling from RAF Coltishall back in the day. Seeing the pot bellied duo galloping down the taxiway on their spindly bicycle wheel undercarriage was an ungainly prelude to a truly awe inspiring display of raw power. No aviation fan who has witnessed the sight and sound of that vertical climb off the runway can ever forget it and we will probably never see its like again. In case anyone is wondering why they always taxied so fast, it wasn’t to get airborne before the fuel ran out but because number 1 engine (the bottom one) supplied the electrical power and had to be run at high idle at all times to keep the avionics alive.

[@jcameronferguson]

I love that the Lightning was made by an English consumer products division. Imagine a squadron of Maytag F-104s jetting off in search of Soviet bombers, two of which wind up in a flat spin because the weight distribution tilts the basket cradle, and the pilots can't be heard radioing distress because of the WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP

[@Idahoguy10157]

Multiple engine placement in some British aircraft is an exercise by their designers in making life as difficult as possible for servicemen who maintained them. The Lightening being an outstanding example.

[@20chocsaday]

I believe that some, if not most, aircraft designers in the USA have long planned servicing ease as essential. After all, a plane being serviced is a cost and not an asset. This went wrong one day when an engine was hit from behind by a forklift truck. In the air it shot forward and disconnected fuel and hydraulic lines. I think it may have been a DC-10 at Heathrow.

[@KJDragon70]

Ah, the only plane that overtook Concorde that not even the Starfighters, F-16, F14 or F15 could do. It's one of my favourite jets of all time despite it's issues so this video had me smiling the whole way through. Fantastic aircraft and a fantastic video! :)

[@richardvernon317]

A one off stunt pulled by a hooligan of a pilot who VNE'ed the aircraft by 0.3 MACH and had taken most of the paint off the aircraft the night before with the help of his wife and an electric floor buffer. Most of the other fighters didn't attempt to intercept the Concorde from the rear, but attempted head on aspect shots. I first heard of these Concorde sorties over the North Sea in March 1985, a month before Hales pulled it his little stunt off.

[@JackNiles-hc8yz]

@@richardvernon317 Lol. Why am I not surprised?

[@jimtaylor294]

^×2 Hmm. I suspect old dickie here had a girlfriend pinched by a Lightning pilot back in the day or something 😆 . It's a big claim that the myriad of Mirages, F-104's & more didn't have a *single* pilot that [somehow] didn't want the kudos of outdragging Concorde 😆 . (being a Fighter pilot kind of comes with being a thrill seeker, and a little bit mad) The EE Lightning pulled it off *because* the aircraft could do it, every bit as much as the pilot wanted to. Tis also not every day a pilot gets to say he out-raced another supersonic aircraft with twice the number of turbojets and over 150,000lbs of maximum thrust 😂 .

[@gowdsake7103]

Also got ABOVE a U2 at its ceiling

[@dukeford8893]

@@gowdsake7103 Lol. Not a big deal, really.

[@johnthomas7517]

The story of Taffy Holden becoming a surprized Lightning pilot is quite intense.

[@sietuuba]

I just had to go and re-watch the video about it, from two years back, by _Paper Skies._

[@timbirch4999]

Somebody else may have commented this, if so, apologies. But the cracking rock track accompanying the airshow video clip, that sounds like Deep Purple from 1975 is actually a young Australian group from today! "Speed Demon" by Under Earth. Their stuff goes from early heavy metal, through 80s thrash into 90s funk metal. I'm loving their stuff!

[@mettrisscomputeque8238]

Thanks! I was thinking I was missing an album or something :D Off to check them out right now!

[@Lenderz]

Thanks

[@HardThrasher]

Aw thanks man

[@Lenderz]

@@HardThrasheryou’re most welcome, it’s becoming tradition now, keep up the excellent educational videos

[@TheMoulie]

I still vividly remember attending a air show near Manchester in the early/mid 70's and seeing a formation of two of them fly overhead. Holy fuck were they loud. It was love at first burst ear drum (no ear drum were hurt during the airshow). Many years later when I joined my current school as their resident physics and maths nerd I was chatting to the IT support guys and one of them actually worked on the electro/mechanical navigation systems on Lightnings owned by the Saudis back in the 70s.

[@RapperBC]

Well. As an 'Murcan, I can say that, having watched your B-17-Hardthrashing, and now this: fair play and all that. And I can't stop belly-laughing. I can't.

[@G4rr0.]

Amazing work :) Do the Tornado next! I need to follow Hardthrashers aircraft of desire through the ages!

[@MostlyPennyCat]

And Jaguar Also Harrier Then Canberra Oooh Bucanneer And Vulcan, Valiant and Victor

[@sichere]

@@MostlyPennyCat Buccaneer mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[@MostlyPennyCat]

@@sichere Have you seen the low altitude flight on KZbin? You could reach out and touch the grass.

[@sichere]

@@MostlyPennyCat Apparently 9ft but still too high for a buccaneer

[@MostlyPennyCat]

@@sichere What's the wingspan? One wing has to be wider than 9 feet, surely. And they do bank _hard_ in that video. Come HT, Bucanneer please! PLEASE! 🥺 Also there's a story of Bucc pilots along to do a "low pass flyby" for one of the Nimitz classes at it came to visit Portsmouth. Three groups, one flew above the deck, another close to the deck and then another below the line of the back off the port side. And food they even show off too, it was apparently terrifying, the top group was at eye eye level of the captain, the middle group world have been rolling if the gear was down and the lower group hugged the hull along where all the sailors were standing. Sadly I've long since lost the text for it. If you ever fancy doing the SR-71, find the story of it doing a low pass flyby for a group of air cadets or scouts (or something) In heavy fog Technically while below the stall speed for the aircraft. Luckily with enough tetra-wotsit to relight the burners. Great story.

[@claveworks]

My dad was a Chief Tech in charge of a Lightning Simulator at RAF Coltishall back in the day. So, yes I have 'flown' and crashed a Lightning as a teenager! The coolest part was being at airshows in the family enclosure and seeing/hearing a 9-ship formation of actual Lightnings do their stuff - not to mention Canberras, Vulcans, and a bunch of random planes. I like the Lightning's weirdness, the strange fuel tanks that sometimes housed cannon as well, the export rocket-firing version, the Firestreak and Red Top - all kinds of versions - I have enjoyed making illustrations of them all - great fun! Thanks for the exposé of how great and terrible it was, you did it proud!

[@Froobyone]

I grew up close enough to RAF Binbrook to experience the Lightnings almost every day in the 80s. It was always a favourite of mine, but in a sky that was then also full of F111s, F4s, Buccaneers, Harriers, A10s, Jaguars and Vulcans, it had some pretty stiff competition. Weirdly, despite never having seen one in the flesh until I was 15, the Tomcat was my favourite and remains yet. Great video. A good mix of humour, irreverence and information.

[@CWargh63]

Growing up in a Navy town I would prudently keep one eye peeled skyward, not so much to watch one sail majestically past as to avoid becoming collateral damage when hydraulic malfunction would strike, and they would then waft to earth, gentle as a tungsten telephone pole dropped from high orbit.

[@gowdsake7103]

Me 2

[@AnimarchyHistory]

The Hawker Harrier contrary to popular belief. Was not Britains first frontline service VTOL aircraft.

[@HardThrasher]

This I did not know...what was?

[@AnimarchyHistory]

@@HardThrasherhe English Electric Lightning! My father to this day tells the story of watching a Mk 1 Lightning take off in under a cricket pitch’s distance and climb to 40,000 feet, forming up on a Canberra that had taken off an hour and a half ago.

[@HardThrasher]

I see, you made a funny :)

[@thelittlebeaver6080]

YES I LOVE THIS PLANE THIS IS MY FAVORITE FIGHTER OF ALL TIME It looks weird but is honestly a beautiful plane in performance speed and capability

[@HardThrasher]

It's sort of modern art in flying form - hideous objectivley and yet majestic anyway

[@doughart2720]

In 1971 Lightnings put on a display at the RAAF's 50th anniversary airshow at Laverton in Victoria Australia. It was bloody amazing. Getting all that way wasn't bad for an aircraft with no range. PS the Vulcan display was awesome too but in a very different way.

[@seidmadr2024]

Excellent video. Now I only wish it had been an hour or two longer, because this was an absolutely excellent rant, and I do just simply love those.

[@MyCrafcik]

My favourite plane of that era, so happy you're covering it

[@ToaArcan]

Saw one flying at Cosford some near-20 years ago. Magnificent, definitely one of my favourites of the age, a classic in the halls of "Triumphs of Brute Power Over Everything Else." Glorious.

[@richardvernon317]

That would be difficult as the last time Lightnings flew in the UK was over 30 years ago.

[@ToaArcan]

@@richardvernon317 I appear to have Mandela Effect'd myself. Gonna guess that the static one they had on display got combined with another jet doing the "Take off and immediately pitch-up" bit, and my grandfather's description of the Lightning doing the same. Brains are funny things.

[@ianmangham4570]

​@ToaArcan You did type "some near 20 years ago" so that covers 30 😅🙏👍🤠🇬🇧 I use to watch multiple lightning jets blasting through the sky's at raf Finningley and their really long runway now Robin Hood Doncaster Sheffield Airport or whatever they're calling themselves today 😅 , 70s and 80s plus we had Raf Finningley Air display every year with a haf dozen or so in formation 🤠🇬🇧 they tare and rip at the fabric of space/time when in reheat 🔥

[@ToaArcan]

@@ianmangham4570 It definitely wasn't 30, I'm only 28 lol. Genuinely just memory-confused myself.

[@ianmangham4570]

@@ToaArcan I wouldn't worry about it

[@jackmunday7602]

Last week I was given the golden opportunity to sit in the lightning at the Norfolk and Suffolk aviation museum in Bungay. As I climbed the steps to the cockpit I was super excited. Here I was, little me about to sit in one of the most iconic aircraft of the Cold War. And…..I couldn’t fit. I was too tall. The cockpit was so tiny, that Lightning pilots had to be under five foot eight. I’m six foot one. 😫

[@HardThrasher]

Yeah. I mean. Eh gads.

[@oesypum]

As someone who regularly gives lectures, I admire your style of delivery. Something many who give talks or lectures fail to grasp is that you need to captuvate your audience very fucking quickly, you have around 10 seconds to do this. Those who don't grasp this fact fail abysmally, and often are not re-invited to give another talk or lecture, of course there are detractors from this stance, usually those who ae fucking boring to listen to. So carry on as you are, your style captivates and entertains, as well as informs.

[@the_unrepentant_anarchist.]

First saw one at an airshow in the 70s (Farnborough?) and I watched it do the vertical climb thing and it blew me away! By god it was loud (but practically silent compared to the Vulcan!), and with that taking off straight up, and the Harrier flying backwards, I thought I was in the future!! Eight year old me still loves aircraft in all their weird and wonderful incarnations.. 🙂 🍄

[@viking1236]

Similar experience at Teeside air show again in the 70s, sat on the roof of my dads car with the crowd line only 50m or so from runway (those were the days) the pilot went vertical before the end of the crowd and the pressure wave actually deformed the car roof and nearly knocked me off! What a plane!

[@the_unrepentant_anarchist.]

@@viking1236 Yeah, I really miss the 70s. Cider lollies, Marc Bolan and Blondie on the radio, proper snow, authentic smelling pubs, 5p comics, 'Sale of the Century' (from Norwich., it's the quiz of the week!), cap guns, dansette record players, 'kick can and 'oppit', and a total disregard of all things 'health and safety'. Happy days... 🙂 🍄

[@neilturner6749]

A Lightning in ‘burner is way louder than a Vulcan. Vulcans were no louder than jet airliners of the period like the VC10 or Convair 990 were. The F111, B1 and Concorde are the only planes I’ve heard here in the UK that have clearly been louder. Never heard an F105 or F106 but suspect they’d be in the same ballpark (because the U2R with the same J75 engine but no ‘burner is pretty loud on climbout).

[@Eric_Hunt194]

I'm primarily a train nerd, so for me English Electric has perhaps a very different meaning to the more militarily inclined. Anyway, top marks for this video. I wasn't sent to you from Lazerpig directly, but I suspect the Lazerpig attention led to your video appearing in my feed. Keep up the good work, it's very much appreciated.

[@Eric_Hunt194]

Also, "nuclear" is the correct pronunciation. Anyone who thinks you should be saying "nucular" can get in the sea.

[@princeoftonga]

Ahhh that other product of English Electrics obsession with power: The Deltic

[@mediapartners9950]

An absolute banger of an episode. Bingeing on your content. Don’t change.

[@HeroicCid]

Great stuff, as usual. Can’t wait for the next one. :)

[@RabidGod9]

Like you Lord HT, I adore the Lightning, you did it justice. Also best youtube sponsorship deal

[@RippPryde]

Great to see you and Ana teaming up, she is an amazing advocate who has sadly sacrificed too much for this awful war.

[@adamelliott2302]

Thanks!

[@HardThrasher]

THat is very, very kind of you, thank you

[@adamelliott2302]

@@HardThrasher fucking brilliant!

[@a1white]

I remember seeing this at an airshow in the 80’s and been blown away by its noise and power. Fantastically told history of an incredible if deeply flawed plane.

[@ZonkerRoberts]

"Aeronautical embodiment of the Wallace and Gromit theme tune" forced me to pause the video for a bit to recover. (Then we got to "chocolate biscuit in a blowtorch" and I had to go and have a cup of tea before continuing.) Brilliant video!

[@hamstermk4]

I remember that feeling of seeing a modern fighter in person for the first time. Fortunately for me that was an F16. An aircraft that, through numerous upgrade packages and Uncle Sam's bottomless defense spending piggy bank, is still relevant to this day.

[@martinjrgensen8234]

For me it was an F-15 at a German air show when I was 17. A very friendly American pilot who very eagerly talked to me for half an hour.

[@johnwh1039]

You are breath if fresh air, Please keep making them.

[@paganarh]

not a brit, but fell in love with this aircraft the moment I learned about it many years ago. its a brutal shotgun of a plane. absolutely stupid and reckless design that just can not happen any more.

[@simoncampbell-smith6745]

Sir as a fellow lunatic slightly older than your good self I was fortunate to do my first real exercise in the RAF at Binbrook and watched these bonkers planes hurtling around chasing Jaguars in mock fights at zero feet. But I digress from the point of this post. You sir made me laugh the most this year so far with the comments about getting it together with a young lady. Describing the results as a Fox three. I will never be able to fly in DCS again and engage the enemy with an AIM-120C with out tittering like a demented elderly 14 year old. Well done for that comedy quite classic.

[@zman1508]

Looking forward to this even if i have to be up at 4am

[@england902]

Best looking fighter ever made. I was born in the 50 and remember the lightning flying directly over my house to go and land at binbrook.

[@Birch12430]

Hyped, recently started seeing this In the tier I'm at in war thunder. The top mounted rockets are just cool as f

[@SpitsAreTheBest_Mk.IX_61]

Shame that it’s utterly shit now that it fights against all aspect missiles

[@HardThrasher]

Ah - yeah, that would not go well

[@wickendiana8310]

​@@SpitsAreTheBest_Mk.IX_61i trust you can outrun A 10s and Su 25s

[@anahodil]

Quickly becoming one of my favorite channels. Excellent work.

[@kersacoft]

I do love the machines that come from post-war periods, they're the vanguards of what eventually becomes the new tried and perfected standard, themselves not reaching it due to being hilariously akward, at least in hindsight.

[@alganhar1]

That, is the best description of the British translation of Nuclear I have ever heard.

[@michaelleslie2913]

The original missile with a man in it , supersonic in a climb , absolutely fantastic choice my lord I shall have my man Cheddars make sure I don't miss it 👍

[@richardvernon317]

Except it wasn't capable of going supersonic in a vertical climb and couldn't do 50000 ft in a minute either. That was British Pathe Bullshite from the 1950s.

[@michaelleslie2913]

That's it mate spoil it for us 🤪

[@michaelleslie2913]

And while I think of it, I think you will find that I didn't mention vertical in my comment just climb which having just checked it absolutely could.

[@HardThrasher]

The F6 absolutely could, the P1B, not so much

[@HistoryofEverythingChannel]

As always, love your work Hardthrasher

[@nickbarton6022]

Another bloody marvellous video about a bloody marvellous (and utterly bonkers) aeroplane. And if you could just see your way clear to sneaking in a few more sweary bits in all future productions, that’d be pretty bloody marvellous too. Many thanks in advance and all that.

[@stevehenrys]

In 1962, as a young lad, I went to the Farnborough Air Show and the highlight for me was when 9 Lightnings roared down the runway in groups of 3. I was standing opposite where they lifted off and though I was expecting the vertical climb out, I didn't expect them to do a flick roll within 20 feet of the ground. I gasped! I fell in love with the Lightning there and then. And, more than 60 years later, I still have that image in my head. It was therefore one of the biggest disappointments in my young life a few years later when I discovered that the Lightning did indeed have feet of clay. Still, the idea that an aircraft designed 70 years ago is still one of the fastest interceptors ever makes me love it still.

[@ehochmuephi8219]

My Lord HardThrasher. Thank you. Please keep them coming, brilliantly written and delivered. p.s. what's the deal with the rockets? Were they really that terrible? Seems like a bit of an oversight, solely relying on a pair of them.

[@HardThrasher]

I'll have you know those aren't rocket sir! They're missiles! Very, very short range and rubbish ones but, nonetheless..... Basically we couldn't mate the Lightning to the Sidwinder because it would've meant a computer for which there was absolutley no room

[@ehochmuephi8219]

@@HardThrasher My humble apologies. If they are indeed missles, it was well worth it. Computers are overrated, I don't think they have a future in aviation.

[@grippingyarnsuk]

Thank you for highlighting Ukraine

[@TBone-bz9mp]

Does anyone recall the children's book 'Thunder and Lightings'? That was my introductions to this wonderfully odd aircraft.

[@JacobT-1]

Thank you for sharing more about yourself. This video was very personal and important. You taught me more about this plane than anything ever. Understandable plane to be awed by. Thank you for talking about hearing protection and working with Anastasiya too! Edit: Lazer Pig was/is right btw. That is how I found your channel. Very happy they introduced you to me.

[@connormoylan2466]

I feel your pain, I love the F-8 crusader, but as time went on and i got older i discovered the F-22 and the F-18, love at first sight

[@stevenr2463]

Brilliant! I used to love the Electric Lightning too. Since the 60s (guess Im a bit older). Thanks too for adding true facts abouut ME262 vs Gloster Meteor!

[@RoadToad123]

Excellent video good sir! Perhaps you would like to follow it up with the story of the plane which had a set of very similar flight characteristics but remarkably was sold to large proportion of NATO countries despite it tending to turn into a lawn dart when flown at low level.

[@alan-sk7ky]

Ah, the power of bribery... Go and find Captain Lockheed and the starfighters, listen to it. Then come back and share your thoughts.

[@Insertnamehere662]

I’ve actually gotten to play around in one of these, a local farmer bought a decommissioned one cheap when they were going for scrap. We staged in his field when going on a kayaking trip and he let us climb around on it and sit in the cockpit. Sadly it was mostly stripped of anything important and was essentially a shell with a foam seat and a few switches and pedals.

[@MostlyPennyCat]

My grandmother was Ukrainian and also had to hide from Soviets and Nazis during the second world war. She hid in a hay barn and the only good she had was margarine. And a spoon. For the rest of her life she couldn't stand the taste of margarine.

[@gordonsmith4884]

Had it once at school, never again. Another dreadful French idea.

[@christopherward5065]

Entertaining. I loved this aircraft too. It achieved some amazing feats that make it unique. It seems that several problems limited it to being a fast interceptor. The use case for it in the undeveloped form it arrived in was limited to being impressively powerful and astonishingly fast. It must have been exhilarating to fly one.

[@chrisgregory7131]

I have to dispute the description of this as ugly! Its unconventional, sure, but it looks like the embodiment of the space age, and its awesome!

[@joshcarter-com]

Really brilliant video. I lived on a US Air Force base for several of my formative years and grew into a plane nut, too. It’s fun to see the same thing but from the English perspective.

[@Kevin-mx1vi]

In the early 60's we used to occasionally visit one of my dad's friends who was stationed at RAF Finningley. I remember he lived close to the end of the runway and seeing (and feeling !) Lightnings taking off, which was quite a scary experience for a small boy from the Pennines, where there are no airfields because there are too many big things for planes to crash into.

[@SpitsAreTheBest_Mk.IX_61]

It’s nice to see that you chose to make the video on the “lightening” first

[@nigeldewallens1115]

That was utterly delightful and your colourful use of English took it to a new level 🤪

[@colhammer1]

Did not disappoint, unlike the English lightning's. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿⚡

[@andyduggan7810]

Built in a big shed on the Strand Road, on my school bus route into Preston town centre. I'm lucky to be old enough to have seen these at airshows. We also lived near the BAe Warton aerodrome for a time, Lightnings would be in for work occasionally.

[@Hartley_Hare]

My expert (not really) opinion is that everything which happened to the British aviation industry after this was toss.

[@HardThrasher]

Well we've never built anything quite as insane as this again, but we should acknowledge we thought flying a subsonic aircraft with variable geometry thrust in a high-threat environment was a good idea....

[@Hartley_Hare]

@@HardThrasher Like Roly Falk doing his test flying in a three piece suit, there is a fine line between brilliance and aimlessly eccentric behaviour...

[@Oldmanofthewood]

Absolutely first class presentation milord!

[@ericmyrs]

Where can I subscribe to Peasant Suppresion Monthly?

[@jonpick5045]

Conservative Campaign Headquarters, 4 Matthew Parker Street, London, SW1H 9HQ

[@nervo6321]

It’s still my favourite aircraft of all time, happy summer days at air shows in the 1970s watching them tear the sky apart.

[@richardvernon317]

Saudi's bought them because the USA wouldn't allow anything of theirs to be be based near Israel. The Saudis were not going to buy French Mirages as they were operated by Israel, The Saab Draken had US Avionics and Missiles so rule one applies. The Saudis were not going to buy anything off the Infidel Commies so if they wanted a Supersonic fighter, there was only one thing left. I suspect the boys at BAC also did some local Bribing as well.

[@HardThrasher]

No, no , no - they bought them because the Lightning was the most amaz....yeah...ok....allow a man to beleive :)

[@sichere]

The BAC Lightning deal was one of the largest military contracts of the day and there is always some form of bribery involved and is why NATO got stuck with the F104 instead of the SR177.

[@richardvernon317]

@@sichere Germans were never going to buy the SR-177!!! They already knew operating an aircraft using High Test Peroxide was a very bad idea. Fleet Air Arm were never going to operate it either as there was no way that the rest of the Royal Navy were going to allow a butt load of HTP to be stored on either their carriers or logistics support Royal Fleet Auxiliaries. SR-53 and SR-177 were Royal Aircraft Establishment fetish machines (or 2/3 perfect ones). T-tail, Check, HTP Rocket fitted, Check, oh cannot put the engines in the wing roots. Bugger!!!!!

[@davidpeters6536]

Been in the Lightning fan club since 1962 when I saw a display at Middleton St. George shooting along the runway at 500 mph at about 25 feet then pulling up to vertical and going up like nothing else on the planet could at the time. The over tanks and the fat belly the Mk6 got were not pretty but it was astonishingly beautiful to my eyes. The Meteor info was very interesting too.

[@davidpeters6536]

The Meteor - Me 262 info was very interesting too.

[@WBLBears11]

Many poo-chutes!

[@PatrickMehaffy]

Wasn't expecting the heavy riffs for the music. \m/. (Good video as always.)

[@GameBusterInc]

Somehow your lordship and I are always on the same wavelength. Having finally seen Top Gun Maverick and at long last finishing a classic game from my childhood I never had the skill to (Ace Combat 4), I've been in a very fighter jet-y mood.

[@mojosabien]

So good I had to watch it twice.

[@RaverDad]

I used to have the cockpit clock from the original Samlesbury "gate guard"!!. Gave it back to dad to gift at Warton years later...

[@davidbrennan660]

Good Show, I have always liked this air frame.

[@ASoIaF1234]

I can only say thank you for giving me the chance to chuckle at your “fox 3” pun while recovering from a certain virus. Genuinely the first grin I’ve been able to muster all day!

[@HardThrasher]

Glad to help :)

[@bryburiya2709]

Having first seen this video in my feed, I saw the comparison to the F-22 and it set of alarm bells in my head having seen such comparisons been accompanied with deranged rambling, but watching the video I am proven wrong! You fairly critiqued the Lightning recognizing its many flaws and how it still manages to be extremely cool in spite of it all, great job.

[@RustyShackleford545]

Lol, it reminded me of when Canada was debating on buying the F-35 and one of the more vocal opinions was to bring back the Avro Arrow instead.