DELTA WING LIGHTNING

[Fmk.6john]

Good morning all

I am taking the plunge and breaking my Britmodeller virginity .

The story goes a little something like this, i bought a couple of airfix Lightning kits and the quality of them are so bad that trying to make them look like what they should do would be impossible.

So I decided to do a kitbash or whatif type model, The delta planform interested me and also tking cues from the tiffie I decided to go for a canard fore plane too.

Next a quick lick of primer and then some more fill/sand/fill/sand/fill/sand..........

After a big push yesterday i got the decals and weapons on and made a base to mount her on too.

After the success of the export Lightning’s to the Kuwait and Saudi nations the BAC pushed to develop the Lightning by extending range and weapons load, the wing was revised to a delta plan form incorporating a canard fore plane, this gave the Lightning unprecedented turning ability, also the larger wing gave an increased fuel capacity that almost doubled the Lightning’s range.

New weapons came in the form of the Black Shadow, a much improved and more reliable version of the Red Top missile which gave an all aspect attack capability against supersonic and stealth targets.

Later weapons additions came in the form of LGB's, Aim 9L sidewinders, runway denial munitions and BVR missiles, improvements in the radar system gave a look down ability and one of the best pulse doppler systems in the world, also revamped electronic defence systems and chaff and flare systems.

All these improvements made the Lightning a world beater leaving the likes of the F-15 trailing in a distant second place.

Hope you all enjoy an dcomments are very welcome but please be gentle.

Regards,

John.

[desmojen]

I'm not a big fan of whiffs, but that actually looks quite cool - believable too.

Nice one John!

Jen.

[Dave]

Good morning all

I am taking the plunge and breaking my Britmodeller virginity .

You might want to be more careful saying things like that around here. There's some odd ones about!

That is a very nice build John Like Jen said, very believable too!

[Mike]

I'm not a big fan of whiffs, but that actually looks quite cool - believable too.

What she said... Nice opening shot John

[seanrgb]

Nice work John

saw this build somewhere else

but your version of the lightning somehow looks right

[Skii]

Crikey! I'm REALLY impressed with that, like Jen said - very believable !

[Geoff_B]

I'm not a big fan of whiffs, but that actually looks quite cool - believable too.

Depends what Wha-if your talking about Jen, its a very broad church from subtle propossed variants to exisisting in service aircraft to complete flights of fantasy.

As it happens English Electric did propose a Delta Winged Lightning in the P-6 range. This had the sapphires engines and the wing changed to a full delta but retained the conventional tail. The canaards were used on the P6D which had wing mounted engines. All these were propossed for the requirement that led to the Bristol P188.

Anyway nice model John and i'm sure the what-if boys will love it.

Geoff

Edited June 2, 2007 by Geoff_B

[Nev]

That is brilliant! A while ago on the whiff boards someone did a delta Lightning - probly the variant Geoff mentions, in a very smart grey/green 5 sqdn scheme

But yeah, NMF, in flight, 11sqdn, patch = The canines genitals!

[Fmk.6john]

Morning all,

Thanks for the positive comments, I have a twin tub on the desk which will be finished in Kuwait scheme at the moment and there is a Gannet in the works too so will have to get busy soon!!.

Happy modelling .

John.