Anonymous commented at 2017-11-23 01:58:51 » #2186271

Brits have the right to be proud of the Lightning but I wish they wouldn't talk it up like some kind of super plane that could beat anything the U.S. or U.S.S.R. had. It is very, very fast and can climb very, very fast but that's literally all it can do. There are just too many design compromises to achieve that performance. It only has enough fuel for 30 minutes of flight, its radar is puny so it can only carry short range missiles, and Backfires and Blackjacks can both launch air to ground missiles outside its effective range. Furthermore, it couldn't even intercept a cruising Concorde... they tried. Hell, the Air Ministry won't even let them be flown in the U.K. any more.

Instead, brag about the TSR2, the Tornado or the Eurofighter, those are some good pieces of machinery.

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Anonymous commented at 2019-05-23 02:46:57 » #2382503

We'd like to, but TSR.2 never made it into service (unfortunately), Tornado was a joint project (and a lesser one than TSR.2), and don't EVEN get me started on Eurofighter (fuck you, Germany)...
Lighting sucked overall, but at least it was all-British to the end.

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