24th April XS458 High Speed Runs

oh stop it you three, you’ll makes us all blush. (yes foul mouthed engineers do blush sometimes):rolleyes:

Well said on two counts now Lighty!

Cheer’s John/Milt,

And to all you so called enthusiast’s Darn sarf, you don’t know how lucky you are being so close to all the groups who keep our aviation heritage in the public eye and away from the dreaded scrapman.

So get your bl**dy hands in your pocket’s and help them out for god sake, once the aircraft are cut up, carted away and the groups of real enthusiast’s are disbanded there’s no going back 😡

I must admit I’m biased towards 458, for one thing there’s a spare seat and who wouldn’t jump at the chance of having a run in live Lightning 😀

but whatever the aircraft, where ever it’s based or whoever is putting all the hard work in for our pleasure let’s not let them think it’s all for nothing.

Keep it up guy’s, your all star’s in my book.

it is, its a balancing act. its not just us, its most of the events around the country. we do sometimes run more than one, but again, it depends on the numbers booked This is why we tend to go RSVP these days, so we know how much we can cover. Last year we ran the Vixen and Sea prince on the same day. We tend not too generally, because it is very stressful for the team, you have to have eyes in the back of your head every second. The Lightning isn’t ready yet, so she will just be open for cokpit tours ,and perhaps a gear retraction demos or something.

But hey, you can still get yourself up to Cranfield if you want to experience your pants on fire for a few minutes! 🙂

It must be difficult getting the gate prices right, and it sounds like a prophecy of doom, but I hope you get strong support, I really want to get to one of the Shack runs this year so I will keep a look out for your event MIlt. Do you run several types on one day, ie Lightning, Shack etc or is different types on different days?

Yes, a couple of them will most likely be public runs, it will all depend on funds being available to cover off the days. Avgas is hugely expensive, and its getting more and more difficult to sustain such runs, without putting the entry prices up. If you ask £15-20 for such events, people complain because an air show ticket might only be £5 more, but the reality is, it costs that much to cover it. She shack costs about £500 for a 10 minute run, and we have to cover that cost off, plus insurance. So long as we get around 50-70 odd people at the runs we can. Without appearing to be a doom monger, All I would say about all of these such runs, jets and props alike, is: when you see them advertised on this forum, go and see them while you can, because 3-4 years from now, there will be very few runs happening anywhere. almost none of the groups bar one or two, make any profit from these runs, infact barely cover the operating costs. With fuel, insurance, and consumable prices rocketing each year, such public runs are becoming exceptionally difficult.

….now 4 avgas drinking griffons at chat, is another tale!!!

Sorry to deviate slightly, but will you be running the Shack this year, and if so is it a public event?

top post Lighty, and believe me, the cash you guys throw our way, is very much appreciated by every group. yup, throw the operating manual in the bin mate, all you need to know in the real world is, she uses fuel quicker than you can pump it in!!;)….and yes, it costs a bomb!…………, now 4 avgas drinking griffons at chat, is another tale!!!

Lighty,

I couldn’t have put it better myself 😀 :D, just sat her now with the operating data manual for the T.5 and gave up after reading the first few para’s!!!!!.

Regards,

John.

Bl**dy hell what have I started?

My mistake sorry, I only went off the info I found on several sites about 458 and what I read in a couple of pamphlets on her.
I’m no lightning expert, I just know I love them and that a trip to cranfield to see a growling T5 is a lot cheaper than a trip to cape town :rolleyes:

I couldn’t really give a monkeys chuff (and haven’t got the time to waste) calculating the fuel consumption of a puch maxi let alone a T5 😀
what I do have though is the willingness to get out of the house drive hundreds of miles and support those that are experts in lightning’s (Russell, the lpg and MJR at project 53) I may not know one end of a spanner from another but I can show them that all their hard work is not in vain by visiting them and throwing a bit of cash their way.

458, 728, 904 and 579 may not be around forever, and it’s thanks to people like Russell Carpenter, Mjr, Andy bonsell and the rest of their team’s that we have the chance to get up close and personal and experience something as fantastic as a live lightning in full re-heat.

Keep up all your good work guy’s (and who cares how much fuel you use!).

Just to copy my post off the LPG’s forum, this is what i got for the fuel consumption of the aircraft.

The rolls royce avon 301r engine of the lightning produces 16360lb of thrust at full reheat and has a specific feul consumption (SFC) of 1.853 lb/lbf (pounds per hour pound). To allow that to make more sense here is a suitable analagy. An engine that produces 1lb of thrust and burns 1lb of feul per hour has an SFC of 1 lb/lbf.

So, back to the most basic of basics. The lightning has 2 engines, totalling 32720lb of thrust.

32720 x 1.853 = 60630.16
Meaning that the lightning is capable of consuming 60630.16lbs of feul in an hour. Now, to break that down.

60630 divided by 60 = 1010.502 to 3 d.p. (decimal places)

1010.502 divided by 60 = 16.842 to 3 d.p.

So, at full reheat on both engines the lightning burns 16.842lbs of feul per second.

Jet feul weighs 6.84lbs per gallon, so finally 16.842 divided by 6.84 and we can now conclude that the true feul consumption of the lightning is approximately 2.464 gallons of feul per second.

Jet A1 costs something in the order 64p a litre at the moment, roughly £2.40 a gallon. Excluding the startup and fuel consumed while the engines are at idle and taxiing power, you’d burn about £75 of fuel in the 12 seconds or so that the aircraft is at full power. For the rest of the run including a static reheat it would total to about £450 worth of fuel being consumed. The only thing left to add into the equation now is the Avpin starter fuel, which is currently around £80 a gallon. If a fast taxi run in the aircraft costs around £600, it makes sense that £100 of that goes back into the aircraft to fund maintenance.

14 gals a second?? think someones been telling you big fibs:). a t5 holds about 7500lbs of fuel. so @ 14gals a second, call it 140lbs a second, you would use 8400lbs a minute. so in a t5 you would run out of fuel in 53 seconds in reheat!

f3 and t5 use about 750lbs a minute in max reheat at low level, so about 12.5lbs a second, or 1.25gals a second..or just about 2 standard oil drums a minute. think about emptying an oil drum full of diesel in 30 seconds, through 4 pipes. 2 1.5 inch pipes under 600psi, and the other two pipes, 2 inches in diameter, under 50psi of pressure. that is basically what is happening to a Lightning in reheat. This gives you a range of 10-12 minutes with the volume control off of the scale.. The f6/t55 and f53 were a little more, around 1.6 gals a second at low alt. you can get an f6 down to about 8-9 minutes duration if your ham fisted.

Hi there Proctor I’m sure Russell won’t mind me ansewring this, during a fast taxi run with 2 thirsty avon 302’s on full re-heat XS458 uses around 14 gallons of fuel a second 😮

Hmm, I only got about 2 gallons per second when i did the calculations with the SFC units. Still, i could be wrong.

Took a group of air cadets up to Cranfield last Saturday for a tour of XS458 and a static re-heat test. Absolutely awesome. Especially for the cadet who got to sit in the cockpit during the engine run. The rest of the cadets were equally impressed and it was good to see them go home with huge grins on their faces after their experience.

So if you have the money to spare please support Russell and his team by attending their fast runway runs. They work extremeley hard work and are very dedicated.

It’s well worth the vist team she’s an iconic piece of aviation history. Where else other than South Africa can you get up close to a fully functional Lightning. It’s an experience you won’t forget.

I notice that there’s a merchandise page on the T5 web site. Maybe it would be worth someone from the group contacting Ian Allan Publishing to see if they could arrange some sort of a deal for you to sell the Lightning book that I did some time back? The book features a first-hand account of flying in XS458 and includes various photos of the aircraft, so I would have thought it would be something appropriate to sell and raise money? I don’t know what Ian Allan would say but I would think they’d be happy to help and the idea would certainly have my blessing.

you know you want too!!!

SADSACK re;

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I take it you mean engine runs, not a taxi ride?

Hi SADSACK, There are a couple of fast taxi runs on certain months of the year with static re-heats (see the T5 web site for details), and if you don’t hang about you could be sat in the right hand seat next to the pilot in one of the most iconic and the last all British fighter ever designed (again see the web site and contact Russell for detail’s).

Proctor VH-AHY Gooday

If its not a rude question, how much fuel do you burn during your taxi runs?

Hi there Proctor I’m sure Russell won’t mind me ansewring this, during a fast taxi run with 2 thirsty avon 302’s on full re-heat XS458 uses around 14 gallons of fuel a second 😮

Regarding the “will she ever fly again” question, I’m sure we’d all like to see her back up in the big blue where she belongs but until someone (obviously from foreign shores because of the CAA regulations) realises what great condition she’s in (and if russell is willing/daft enough to part with her) she’s here in the uk for “us” to enjoy and for “us” to be thrilled by her awesome power.
Watching her perform a high speed run is fantastic but imagine what it feel’s like to sit in her while she’s doing it :dev2:

She might not always be around, thanks to the dedication of Russell and his team she is!, if you want to experience what is for any Lightning fan the thrill of a lifetime get in quick and put your name down for a run in her, you will not regret it! :dev2:

Looking on your website there are numerous statements claiming ‘she will fly again’ Is this a realistic aim and if so what is happening and what is required to make this a reality?

I think the chance’s of that are pretty remote.

Although if somebody was looking for an airframe to ship abroad for a return to flight she and perhaps the one at Gatwick would be the only 2 realistic candidate’s.

Looking on your website there are numerous statements claiming ‘she will fly again’ Is this a realistic aim and if so what is happening and what is required to make this a reality?

fuel burn

enought to run your car for a whole year:

Gooday

If its not a rude question, how much fuel do you burn during your taxi runs?

cheers