70th Anniversary of the First Flight of the P1A

P1A WG760 first flew on the 4th August 1954. A week later, whilst on another test flight, the airframe achieved Mach 1.03. The P1A’s and P1B’s were of course later developed into the Lightning and the rest as they say, is history….

Some personal utterances of the Lightning:

I arrived at RAF Binbrook, in North Lincolnshire, around Easter time 1975. This was my first posting following basic trade training. I soon learnt the Lightning was a pig to work on – not at all designed with maintenance in mind! However, the type was a delight to fly in.

Having recently checked my logbook I note that I flew in three different T5’s during my time at Binbrook. One of those was XS417 which I flew in five times. That airframe was one of the last to leave Binbrook during the type’s withdrawal from service. It is now at rest in the Newark Air Museum.

A few months after arriving at Binbrook, I was taken out onto the airfield in a tractor complete with towing arm and instructor. I connected the towing arm to one of the “decoy” airframes and spent the next thirty minutes, or so, towing and reversing said “decoy”. Following that exercise I was granted my aircraft tow licence. The airframe was F1A XM173 which still survives today. It hangs from the ceiling of the staff dining room, at the household appliance manufacturer Dyson in their HQ’s in Wiltshire.

Whilst on Bolthole Detachment, from Binbrook, to RAF Leconfield in the long hot Summer of 1976. I was standing outside our hanger waiting to see a visiting Hastings take off. However, in front of it was a single seater Lightning. The latter started its take off run only to lose its recently applied coat of paint half-way down the runway. As the airframe passed me the rear half was the more familiar silver whilst the front half still retained its painted colour scheme. The detached paint was seen fluttering down the runway as if it were a large sheet of plastic.

The “day job” of the Lightning was of course protecting the UK’s airspace from unwanted and unidentified aircraft. The so-called Quick Reaction Alert (QRA). In the case of Binbrook this meant sleeping alongside two fully armed jets at the end of the runway. The handful of ground crew spent seven days out there. This was obviously a sleeping duty waiting for the klaxon to go off. The two duty pilots, who were not permitted to sleep, were on duty for twenty-four hours. They had the pleasure of comfy chairs to sit in and the constant babble of the radar controllers talking over the intercom, or the confidence bleep every few moments from the system. Many hours were spent on that duty, during my years at Binbrook.

Today, at the rather derelict looking Binbrook site can be found an amazing three complete airframes and four cockpit sections. One of the complete airframes is XS459 which I have flown in once as per above. Further, in the nearby village, of Binbrook, can be found another complete airframe and another cockpit. It should be noted that all are considered “private” – rather than museum display / routine public access.