John
It did have an auxiliary tank, the ventral one, although I'm not sure that it
could be jettisoned.
It could go vertically, but it had to start from a minimum speed, and I'm not
sure that it was truly vertical or that it was accelerating.
I remember my Boss taking me to visit his family in Arkansas, each in a F-16C.
We refuelled at New Orleans, on the way to Little Rock and then lined up for
take off when the Boss (leading) was informed that the nearer arrester cable
("barrier") was rigged and up -- at around 1,300ft from the threshold. Since
we had centreline tanks fitted we couldn't trample it at take off speeds So
the Boss tells me to "get off before it". With the burner lit and as much of
the 30,000lbs of thrust pushing (it probably didn't develop full thrust until
over 300kts) I managed to get it off the ground, but only just before the
cable, and then it wasn't going vertically, more like around 60-70degs nose-up.
The point of the story (not that I mind telling unsolicited stories . . .) is
that you don't get much out of even a high-performance aircraft, fully fuelled,
at takeoff speeds, and I nearly had that cable cutting off my tank.
Oh all right, I'll tell another story, at least vaguely related: I was on
Jaguars in Germany in the early 80s and we had a squadron exchange with a F-15
squadron at Bitburg. On the last day I headed off for a sortie and recovered
to Bitburg at the end. As I approached the TACAN fix I saw what looked like
shooting stars heading skywards. It confused me greatly until I realised that
it was the Bitburg F-15s doing max performance climbs as part of their
exercise; they seemed to be vertical, although they probably weren't, and it
was a very pretty and impressive sight.
Chris
On 17 Oct 2011, at 11:36, JOHN DUGGAN wrote:
> Chris, As you say a tremendous plane for its time. Limited by its fuel
> consumption - A lightning with drop tanks would have been interesting...
> ;-O> Am I right in believing it was the first aeroplane with the ability to
> accelerate vertically?
--
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