Introduction

A long while ago I saw a creative image where someone had utilised some F1 car colour schemes onto different aircraft, as a Lightning fan this scheme stood out to me and looked quite enticing. So here we have the Rothmans Sea Lightning (with the variable angle of attack wing removed as it was interfering with the panel lines and was generally being a pain). Some of the below images are of the original build to show aspects of the airframe.

The English Electric Lightning has long been a favourite aircraft of mine even though it retired from service before i was old enough to see it fly... I have been very lucky to see 2 seperate aircraft do fast taxis at Bruntingthorpe (unfortunately now a big carpark). The Lightning was touted with a variety of proposals to convert it into a carrier bourne aircraft, the most common design for this was based on a twin seat aircraft, removed the nose intake inleui of some tornado style side intakes, extended the fin forward and added some small swing wing sections, all of which i feel detracted from the fundamental lightning image. I decided to do another "what if" build as if this aircraft actually entered into further development / production but using some alternative adaptations to the original airframe.

Please note this is not a scale replica of anything and is 99% a new build by me. The following adjustments where made to the basic F6 lightning aircraft:

Widened the fuselage by 600mm ish (you can barely notice..)
Moved main undercarriage into the widened fuselage sides
Raised the main wing height
Folding wingtips for carrier storage
Weapons underslung on the wing (much increased payload over F6)
Pitot moved onto wings (2no. now for redundancy etc.)

Features

Custom cockpit (based on EE lightning but with RJ tweaks where necessary for carrier operation etc.)

Openable cockpit

Intake condensation effect

FAST and agile aircraft model

Cool colour scheme

Controls

AG1 = Turns engines on - reheat when on 100% throttle
AG2 = Opens cockpit

AG4 = Arrestor hook
AG5 = Drop external fuel tanks

AG6 = Air-brakes

AG7 = Fold wings
VTOL dn = flaps

Notes

Thanks to "V" for their Funkyplant formula which i used to make the light effect for the condensation in the intake on full throttle and stationary ish.