The English Electric/BAC Lightning needs little introduction.  Conceived as a research aircraft, that ‘accidentally’ went into production, it was the UK’s first (and probably last) home grown supersonic fighter, sole survivor of the Sandys’ Defence Review in 1956 (because “sadly it has progressed too far to cancel”) and served the RAF exceptionally well, into the late 1980s. 

This particular project was inspired by a series of photographs in 2 excellent books;  Tony Buttler’s “British Secret Projects, Jet Fighters Since 1950”, and Derek Wood’s well known “Project Cancelled”, which both give details of a secret 1963 BAC mock up of a proposed Variable Geometry (VG) Lightning.

I have always been a Lightning enthusiast; as a youth I remember watching RAF Leuchars based aircraft flying out over the North Sea to intercept probing Soviet aircraft, then later on a Royal Navy Destroyer, watching astonishing displays by our affiliated RAF squadron (slow pass at bridge height, waving as they drew alongside, then standing on their tail and disappearing vertically into the sky, in a clap of thunder).  However, as Naval Aviation is “my thing”, my modelling projects have generally ignored the Lightning, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the full proposal was actually for a Naval multi-role aircraft (fighter & attack) to the OSR 346 Staff Requirement, to replace the Sea Vixen in the mid-1970s.   In the event, the design came to nothing; after the preferred rival Hawker P1154 project (the supersonic joint RAF/RN Harrier) dissolved into shambles and acrimony and a mini-TSR offshoot became unfeasible, the ubiquitous MDD Phantom was selected by the RN instead.  Nevertheless, as a ‘what if’ project, the Sea Lightning clearly had potential.

Apart from the 2 books mentioned, which include plans for a further developed (and very ugly) solid nosed Lightning, described as Phase 3, details are hard to come by; what is clear is that the proposal was based on the 2 seat trainer, with outer wing panels replaced by variable sweep sections (to reduce landing speed for the RN’s small contemporary carriers), a fin extension for longitudinal stability, a folding fin top section to meet below decks height clearances and new underwing weapon pylons.  In the fighter role, the Red Top missile (already in RN service with the Vixens) would be the main Air-to-Air weapon, with 2 carried on the standard fuselage pylons, whilst the additional wing pylons would be capable of carrying more Red Tops, or a variety of contemporary Air-to-Surface weapons.  The proposal was promoted as low risk, using proven in-service fighter airframe, systems and engines, with comparatively minor modifications to meet the naval attack role.

In 1/72 scale, the only realistic option as a base kit is the venerable Matchbox T55 Lightning, which is currently out of production.  This kit represents the late export variant based on the Lightning F6, with large belly fuel tank and cranked/cambered wing, as used by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait; this strange choice of mark, rather than the more common RAF Trainers (based on F1 and F3 versions), must have seriously limited the market appeal of the kit (converting it to an RAF trainer is a significant task), but means that unwanted kits can now be obtained relatively easily on e-bay (I paid about 4 UK Pounds for mine).  Although this is definitely a basic kit, it looks the part, capturing the complex shape of the side by side 2-seater fuselage well. Dated 1982, it is one of Matchbox’s better offerings, with three sprues in the trademark Matchbox 3 colours (1 white and 2 different greys) and one clear (but thick) transparent sprue for the single piece canopy.  The infamous Matchbox “trencher” must have been on holiday when the kit was moulded, because detail is mainly raised, although rather heavy in places (his mate the bricklayer did them instead).  However, moulding is crisp and the fit of parts workmanlike and precise (as with most Matchbox kits, it needed to be buildable by those with very basic skills!).  I didn’t need filler on any parts of the kit that had not been modified by me, although I suspect that the long wing roots (with very shallow locating tabs) might have needed a brief smear even if I hadn’t hacked them about. 

The cockpit, like the rest of the kit, is very basic; rear bulkhead, floor, 2 non-descript seats, 2 sticks, a flat instrument panel, 2 (identical) and demure looking pilots, plus a rather uninspiring decal of dials and gauges.  The kit has one obvious shortfall that played in my favour; the inner wing section appears to be very thick, coincidentally making it ideal for a VG conversion!  A less obvious shortfall is the presence of gun ports at the front of the underbelly fuel tank (at least that is what I think they are – they may be intended to be air intakes, in which case they are still wrong); as I understand it, the belly Aden guns were not fitted to the 2 seat variants, but for my purposes, seemed entirely appropriate for an attack variant.  Wheel wells, as you would expect from Matchbox and the early 1980s, are bare and unfilled.

Interestingly, the kit’s tailpipe is constructed from 4 separate parts, unlike the other Lightning kits I have built (Frog/Airfix/Hasegawa) who provide uninspiring single part shallow tailpipes.  This would be a plus point for the kit, were it not for the fact that they are very plain looking and thick, however this is something that can be easily fixed with a bit of sharp scalpel sculpting (try saying that without your false teeth!).  The nose cone is also provided in several parts; it has no intake trunking, but this is not apparent when the kit is completed.  Mine was slightly deformed (with a witch-like hooked bit on the end!), but not a significant problem to fix.  I did have one problem with the canopy; although it fitted the cockpit gap perfectly, its forward end was about 1mm thicker than the fuselage and required a small amount of filler to correct.  Other than that, there is little to report;  this is a very straightforward kit that the target market (kids) could assemble competently in about an hour, and be pleased with the results. 

Decals & Instructions

As supplied, the kit can be made into 2 versions, both natural metal and covering the only 2 operational users of this mark; the Royal Saudi Air Force and the Kuwait Air Force.  I have only seen one further colour scheme for the T55 and this is the temporary UK markings worn by the aircraft when they and their single seat companions were repurchased by British Aerospace and flown back to the UK for a possible sale to a European customer (Austria, I believe) which fell through.  The supplied markings include comprehensive stencilling and warning notices, as well as national markings and the many black panel lines seen on the real aircraft.  The instructions on my kit were a typical Matchbox set, with clear assembly diagrams and a slightly small line drawing of the finished model, with painting and decal application instructions, to complement the colour drawings provided on the box back.

With very limited reference information, it was clear that building a Sea Lightning would require informed guesswork and logic to fill out the missing detail and development that real life rejected.  I was happy to go with the T55 version as a baseline, since it represents the most advanced Lightning variant with the large belly tank and tail;  the plans actually show an even bigger tank fitted, but I wanted to stick to the (more realistic) minimal development route, the so-called Phase 2 design, plus I wanted to keep it recognisable as a Lightning.  To give me some scope for imagination, I decided to build a speculative Lossiemouth based in-service aircraft, with ASuW mission outload, depicting what might have been, had the RN Phantom deal fallen through.

First area to receive attention was the VG wing; studying the photos and plans immediately identified some issues, with the wing pivot geometry and training edge profile on the BAC mock up looking decidedly improbable and no indication whatsoever as to how the standard outward folding undercarriage could be re-engineered away from the moving wing section (except for a vague statement in the references that it would be inward folding).  After an entire evening making, cutting up and sticking together different cardboard wing profiles, I finally decided on a plan (and a new pivoting point) that seemed (at least to me) to be more credible than the mock up. 

The lower wing moulding was carefully dissected into sections and the wheel bays attached to the upper section in reverse.  This new wheelbay position dictated where the wing could feasibly pivot; the upper wing section was then cut in two, borrowing a feature from the Tornado (whose technology, along with the F111, derived from the same line of NATO funded NBMR3 research as the VG Lightning study) by using a flexible wing glove to cover the resulting gap (modellers fudge or realistic proposition?).  Given the importance of large flaps for a Naval Aircraft (can you “blow” a VG Flap?), I decided to kept the whole length of the trailing edge intact as part of the moving outer section (the plans show it splitting mid span), which again helped to make it look an altogether more probable arrangement.  At this point, after a quick coat of grey Humbrol enamel, I began to panic over the raised detail on the wings;  with paint applied over the white plastic, the size of the raised lines became obvious;  they looked more like spoilers and wing fences than detail, so they were all sanded down to more reasonable proportions. 

Apparently BAC’s study suggested that the VG wing would have been able to carry more fuel (always the Lightning’s weak point), but to be honest, after all the pivoting gubbins had been added, I doubt that there would have been any space for fuel at all !  With this in mind, I was determined to keep the Lightning’s (unique ?) overwing fuel tanks and pylons (narrowly resisting the urge to fit Saudi style Matra rocket pods to the front of the overwing tanks) and added an additional set of weapons pylons (ex-Airfix Buccaneer) in the same position underneath the wings.  A thick plastic card fillet provided the fin extension, followed by a quick beefing up of the airfield arrestor hook for carrier landings and the main airframe changes were complete.

Next issue was the undercarriage; the Lightning has extremely narrow main wheels to fit into its thin wing; these looked far too flimsy for carrier operations and the high tyre pressures required would almost certainly have led to frequent bounces over the wires.  As already mentioned, the Matchbox inner wing is very thick, and my wheels now folded inwards, so I substituted a set of large and solid Buccaneer wheels and legs, extending them by about 5mm to match the original Lightning set and adding suitable retraction jacks (actually the original Lightning legs) to hold them in place.  With these hulking great ‘tractor’ wheels fitted, the single Lightning nose wheel began to look flimsy too, so a set of redundant Tornado twin wheel nose gear was added, again extended in length, this time to give the aircraft a slight nose up attitude for carrier ops.  To reflect the increased wheel width and the lack of space in the aircraft nose, I reversed the forward gear pivot to retract backwards into the fuselage instead of forward (allowing for potential USN style catapult attachment instead of the RN’s wire strops).  Undercarriage doors were fabricated from a mixture of plastic card and the Matchbox originals, suitably repositioned to match the new structure.

The supplied cockpit was decidedly minimalist, so to emphasise the Observer’s weapon control role, I added a couple of chunky black boxes to his position (Left hand seat – this is a UK Aircraft !), using instrument decals from the spares box to simulate a weapons control and radar panel, then placed an acetate HUD in the right hand pilots position.  My initial (lazy) plan was to use pilot figures to fill the remaining empty space, but the 2 identical clones provided by Matchbox looked all wrong; a subsequent attempt to replace one of them with a differently posed ex-Airfix figure simply highlighted the narrowness of the cockpit (i.e. the 2 figures wouldn’t both fit !) so instead I spruced up the seats with some simple masking tape belts and added a few small boxes and a canopy lifting arm to the rear bulkhead. With the canopy added and painted, the effect was very pleasing;  not super-detailing by any means, but it made the desired point.

As I intended the aircraft to be a Phantom alternative, a suitable colour scheme and markings were selected.  After much consideration I painted the undersides white (Humbrol Satin 11) with a low demarcation line (as per the Phantoms) and the upper surfaces in Extra Dark Sea Grey (Humbrol Satin 123).  Even though the contemporary Buccaneer squadrons found this scheme unsuitable for low level attack and adopted wraparound EDSG instead, it does add some interest to what would otherwise be another boring overall grey aircraft! 

After an second coat of Humbrol white and EDSG, it was time to add the armament;  2 Red Tops from the kit, plus 2 Martel ASMs (1x Anti-Radar, 1xTV) taken from the Airfix Buccaneer.  The characteristically long Lightning pitot tube looked as though it would be a real nuisance (and vulnerable) above and below deck, so was replaced with a smaller (Sea Harrier sized) version using a steel pin. 

A quick coat of Klear/Future provided a base for the decals, which were a mix from the kit and spares box (mainly ex Frog Sea Vixen and Fujimi F4K), again concentrating on the Phantom/Buccaneer period for inspiration.  The large fin fillet looked rather bare, so I added a Modeldecal sourced marking intended for a Phantom radome, celebrating the Royal Silver Jubilee in 1977. This fitted the gap perfectly !  Those kit decals that I used gave me no real problems, except for exuding a white slimy substance, that I assume is some form of adhesive (possibly degraded with age).  I have seen this on several Matchbox decals; it comes off easily if you wish, but in fact it seems to dry clear in any event; liberal application of Humbrol Decalfix allowed all of the decals to settle down well onto the surface.

This was a fun project, using a basic, but serviceable (and cheap) kit.  Given the limited marking options for Matchbox’s 2 seat Lightning variant, the conversion added a lot of interest and allowed me to delve into one of the darker periods of UK Aviation history.   The Matchbox kit is crude by modern standards, but competent enough.  Building out of the box should not prove difficult, even for a beginner, and for the die-hard masochist, there is always scope for detailing or conversion to an RAF Trainer.

With respect to the Sea Lightning, much of what I have done here is pure speculation.  Nevertheless, the aircraft was a real proposal, to take an existing, proven and capable aircraft with development potential and apply NATO funded VG research to provide a realistic contender for the Sea Vixen replacement.  The fact that it made it as far as an official model demonstrates that this was not simply a drawing office apprentice’s design exercise.

But whether or not a VG Sea Lightning would really have been a “low risk” minimal enhancement is a matter of debate.  Personally, and with cynicism born of defence procurement experience, I suspect that the problems I found in changing the kit would have had their real life equivalents; issues such as wing pivoting geometry (and hence CofG), limited wing fuel capacity, flap size and position, undercarriage position and strength, not to mention integration of the new attack weapons into the Lightning’s interceptor systems, fitting additional naval navigation equipment/radios etc and marinisation of components vulnerable to salty environments, would all have conspired to raise costs and delay entry into service.   VG was the “flavour of the moment”, in the 60s and early 70s, but it wasn’t long before designers moved on to other things.

Above all, the Lightning was famously difficult to maintain ashore in heated, well equipped and spacious hangars; so imagine doing an engine change on a heaving deck, inside a crowded ship’s hangar.  I think not.  But it does look good, and (for now!) unique…… and I certainly had a lot of fun building it!

1. Wood D. Project Cancelled – The disaster of Britain’s Abandoned Aircraft Projects. 2nd ed. London,  JANES, 1986. Pages 181-183.
2. Buttler T. British Secret Projects - Jet Fighters Since 1950. London, Midland Publishing, 2005.  Pages 114-116.
3. Thunder & Lightnings [online]. 2005. Available at:   http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/contents.html [Accessed 6 Jan 06].
4. Lightning Association.  English Electric Lightning [online]. 2005. Available at:    http://www.lightning.org.uk/home.html  [Accessed 6 Jan 06].
5. Beedal C.  Navy Matters - CVA01 [online]. 2005. Available at http://navy-matters.beedall.com/cva01.htm [Accessed 6 Jan 06].
6. Great Britain. Ministry Of Defence.  Royal Navy Website [online].  2006.
Available at:   http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk [Accessed 6 Jan 06].