That too. I’m not serious about the “KC-380”, of course, and in fact I’m afraid it could not carry anything underwing at all (at least not without serious modifications), but I may be wrong… 😉

Well they managed to mod the VC10’s with hard-points so why not?
Btw and the Victor come to think of it.

Its got to be the EE lightning for me, with a record breaking rate of climb and an awsome top speed it was a perfect interceptor. What more could you ask of it?

Well, abit of range would have been nice.
Oh, and more missiles, better avionics, zero-zero seat, better visibilty and access for maintenance.

Still a cracking a/c though.:D

Yeah it is put when your under a time limit to remove these things and you dont have the manpower or the correct gear to dismantle these jets in the correct way its the easiest solution im afraid.
She was originally dismantled when moved from binbrook but that was many moons ago.
I have seen sevearl lightnings which have had there wings and fins cut and some you cant tell exactly where they were cut as they were rejoined perfectly.
The main thing is she was saved from the scrapman .

I know, I was there at Binbrook when it came into ASF for transportation.

Pete Truman and FW190uk, I was only trying to be helpful as I had wondered why the RAF Ensign was not used at funerals (I had thought it would be) and so I found out. It may sound “pathetic” to you but many things in the Armed Forces may appear so to people like you; as you can see, RAFA have advised the same. Next time you see coffins of Service personnel being unloaded at Lyneham or Brize, please note that the Union Flag is always used. Once people have retired from the Service then there are choices but, in this case, the RAFA Ensign would be appropriate. I shall say no more on this matter but I will salute Mr Gray, “the man is greater than the flag”.

Hear, hear.

Actually started with just 3 numbers at the formation of the RFC (which was originally envisaged as a loosely Joint Army/RN service (original serial numbers were allocated in blocks to each service from 1-10000 (however not all numbers used by a long shot), However with the advent of a much expanded RFC / RNAS (the Navy going their own way in early 1914) during WWI when serial number 10000 was issued (a BE2 in 1916) , it was decided to put a letter followed 4 figures for both the RFC and RNAS aircraft serial numbers RFC had a block starting from A0001 to J9999 (G and I not included). RNAS had two blocks N0001-N9999 and S0001-S9999. When the RAF was formed the system was retained, though the N block was reused, and when the R block ran out, S was missed, and the next batch started with T. A number of letters have not been used, as they could be confused with another letter, plus from the start of the K series, numbers started at 1000, not 0001. When the Z codes ran out in 1940, the current system came into use (starting with AA100, 001-099 not used). Also a number of serial blocks have never been used, as a security measure (to confuse any enemy about how many aircraft of one type we actually have (Avro Manchester production was 200 aircraft, spread over a block of 300 serials, for example).

As for TSR 2, studied in the cold light of day, cancellation was the only option. The country was broke. F-111K was canned as a sweetener to the Left Wing of the Labour party to get prescription charges into the NHS (source of that little gem, Healey at a RAFHS seminar), plus of course, somebody in the RAF woke up to the fact that the Buccaneer could do most of the missions of the TSR2, at a small fraction of the cost of the TSR2 (though an updated Nav Attack system would have been useful).

Thanks for the update on serial blocks.
As for the TSR2 being scrapped because we were broke that’s true. As you point out the Bucc was much cheaper and could fulfill alot of the roles. Lord Mountbatten famously touted the Bucc by putting a model of a TSR2 on the table and five Bucc models, pointing out that was how many a/c you could get for the same money. What wasn’t pointed out was that you also need to train five Bucc crews for one TSR2 crew, plus five times the number of sorties, plus five times the servicing, plus five times the spares.
Of course, with the Bucc you had a good chance of hitting the target, with the TSR2, you hit it. Still, it is history and ‘what ifs’ will not bring it back.

I saw it the first time round, it was a time of gloom and doom which fortunately did not come true (to date that is).
It projected that something like 224 megatons would fall on the UK if I remember correctly.
The best description of a megaton I’ve ever heard is if one million tons of tnt were loaded onto a train and it passed you by at 50 mph it would take something like 6 hours before the end of it passed you.

Autopilot systems sometimes (depending on the aircraft) won’t engage or even power up below a certain airspeed, might be that you don’t get to old girl going fast enough!

It might even be dependant upon being airborne. Have you tried jacking it up?
Just the nose leg should be enough, just don’t do it with a full fuel load.