err friendly sea vixen type couplings matt? I don’t think so, they are about as friendly as bite in the rear from a Doberman!. they are effin awful, they make a god awful bloody mess in the time it takes to unscrew the little ****es from the pumps!!

beast!!…the sound of them egg beaters on song from the cockpit, is somit else!

If brian said it, you could take it as gospel. he was straight up, and as experienced as you could possibly get on Lightings. Brian confirmed that he did get to 87,000ft in an F53 in Saud. 95,000 has to be an exgeration. Brian was clear that @ 87,000 the 53 he was flying was almost uncontrollable, and wasn’t able to maintain the altitude for long.

wrong.

Not wrong at all – I’m simply stating what Lightning pilots have told me, so unless you think they’re wrong too…:p

yes well sarcasm aside Chox, do you know much about Lightnings? I’ll go through it for you. I would like to hear a direct account from an ex Lightning pilot losing pressurisation and conditioning @ 75,000ft plus, and recovering alive, because it would be a very slim chance of survival. Which Lightning pilots would they be? Well, the ones with super human bodies that allowed them to descend for 2 minutes vertically with zero power, no cockpit pressurisation, conditioning or oxygen supply, and not fall foul to severe hypoxia? or the ones with once in a life time good fortune?

Lets look at the scenario….

If you lost n01 engine at 75,000ft, (your only source of positive cockpit pressure and conditioning, since n02 is dry windmilling to stop you running out of fuel) you wouldn’t have the luxury of a gradual descent to 10-15,000ft Barostatic release window for the seat. Your only option would be to point the nose straight down, and descend, dead weight/dead stick, and hope in vein that your ear drums wouldn’t explode and you wouldn’t pass out well before it was safe to open the cockpit ram air valve @10,000 odd ft. If lucky, you “might” wake up again at 15,000-ft completely disorientated, having had a slim 1-2psi in the cockpit from windmilling no1 engine, because you were also lucky enough that the airframe had remained in the right direction to keep it windmilling.

You “might” also be extraordinarily lucky to find, that the airframe is in one piece without the fin having sheared off, and airframe came down reasonably gently, to allow your brain to fill with blood again and wake up.(unlikley, the lightning don’t fly without power, aerodynamic it isn’t!) Oh and in an attitude that allowed you to Eject or press relight buttons, assuming the puny battery in the F3/F6 had enough left to run the HE boxes, since its just supplied 4 fuel transfer pumps, the AC standby inverter, standby AI and horizon, screen and pitot heaters for the last 2 minutes. Thats on top of you feeling like you have just been punched directly in the brain a dozen times by Mike Tyson, and still being able to go over your drills.

any ex Lightning Pilot, that managed this, ought to put pen to paper and tell the story, because that would be one hell of a lucky man and survival tale. I would take my hat off to him..:eek:

there are several on our lightning site, you may use them, but the original copyright names need to remain on the photos.