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plan_D said:I can't find a source yet but you obviously have not seen a EE Lightning starting up. From the scramble call to the Lightning pulling off the runway, it's about 30 seconds. That includes time it takes for the man to run out and get in the thing. If you sat a man in a Lightning, told him to start it, it would take about 15 seconds to have his engines going and he could be hurtling down the run way. You know Lightnings don't have to wait for avionics to start up? Engine on, heated and he's off and pulling up vertically off the run way. And they could carry on going vertically to 10,000 feet and still gain speed.
plan_D said:Easy to think about, the Lightning is like a rocket (). It was designed as an interceptor, this it did with incredible speed. The engine warm up is true for most aircraft but the Lightning took just seconds to warm up and go. There was no avionics to worry about, it was all EXTREMELY basic engineering to make the thing fly and fly fast.
Erich said:interesting, they should take the game up several levels to 30,000 feet and then see what happens............ ?
E ~
plan_D said:The Lightning didn't have 2 minutes to sit there warming up. It had to get to 50,000 feet pretty damn quickly as soon as the scramble came in. You think it could get up to a Soviet Bear quick enough if it had to sit there for 2 - 5 minutes?
Not only have I seen one of those buggers start up in under a minute, my dad worked on the Quick Response pens when in 11 Sqn. and saw them scramble weekly. And he says that they could be up in the air in well under a minute from scramble call.
RG_Lunatic said:Also, the Russian Bear? Its top speed was about 600 mph, or about 1 mile every 6 seconds, at altitude (~35,000 feet).
20 November {1946} At Cleveland, Ohio, an F8F Grumman Bearcat with Lieutenant Commander Merl W. Davenport as pilot, took off in a distance of 115 feet from a standing start and climbed to 10,000 feet in 94 seconds.
http://www.history.navy.mil/avh-1910/PART06.PDF
plan_D said:You think the Lightning rolls? Jesus christ, you really need to see it take off. It's a bloody rocket with wings! That pilot opens the throttle, that bugger is hurtling down the runway like an effin' rocket, and he'll put its nose straight up like a rocket too.
In March 1962 new world climb records to 9,000 and 12,000 meters were established at NAS Brunswick, Maine, when an F4H-1 piloted by Lieutenant Colonel W. C. McGraw, USMC, reached those altitudes from a standing start in 61.62 and 77.15 seconds, respectively. The F4H-1 continued its assault on time-to-climb records at NAS Brunswick as Lieutenant Commander D. W. Nordberg piloted the Phantom II to 15,000 meters altitude in 114.54 seconds. -Lieutenant Commander F. Taylor Brown piloted the F4H-1 Phantom II at NAS Point Mugu, to a new world time-to-climb record for 20,000 meters with a time of 178.5 seconds.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-4-history.htm
plan_D said:The F-4 was actually slower at scrambling than the EE Lightning. The F-4 had to wait for everything to power up, the EE Lightning didn't. Really, RG, you need to see an EE Lightning take off it's just like a rocket.