Lightning - another Petter Production.
To be fair short legs weren't considered to be a problem as it was designed as a point defence fighter, almost a manned missile (not as much as the crop of rocket-powered ones) to intercept Soviet nuclear bombers. I sometimes get the impression that they weren't necessarily expecting there to be much in the way of airfields for them to land on anyway. UK doctrine of the mid 1950s was to let the Soviets actually drop the first atomic weapon and let it go off, to see if they were serious or not, the reason being the UK defence was to be all out and the defence assets (planes, missiles, etc) were expected to be totally expended in the defence effort. I.e. you couldn't afford to risk them on a dummy attack.
No one has beat it.Originally posted by Sergio_101:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Bremspropeller:
Tony, how fast would a Lightning go on the deck?
You know, that civvie 104 of Darryl Greenmayer still holds the deck-speed record![]()
A SR-71 could have beaten it, but the USAF was not interested in doing so.
Sergio </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
While SR-71 is one of the coolest a/c ever, I don't think it could have beaten the speed record on the deck, at least not if read the flight manual envelope correctly.
http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/5/5-9.php
Regards
omega_max (On HL (way too seldom) as Stoff)