English Electric Lightning II

The English Electric Lightning <link> was a high performance interceptor that flew in RAF service from 1959 until retirement in 1987. The Lightning was tasked with defending the airspace around the UK against intrusion by Soviet air assets such as the 1950's designed Tu-95 "Bear" bomber.

In 2020, the RAF is working up a limited number of ludicrously expensive Lockheed-Martin F35 aircraft also called "Lightning II", to join existing Eurofighter Typhoons to meet the challenges of today. Unfortunately, the challenges of today are typically intrusions of 1950's Tu-95 "Bear" bombers. While there might be new roles for stealth super-planes, most of the work is still chasing off ruskies, airshows & intercepting airliners that get forgetful with transponders. All those could be done very nicely by the old English Electric Lightning.

The basic idea should be to make a quick and dirty update/copy of the original Lightning. What do we keep? Well, the aerodynamics, handling and looks were all praised. This can all be copied by disassembling and scanning the most convenient museum piece. From here structures can be combined & simplified in 3D software and milled wholesale from billets in whatever fancy new aluminium alloys are currently available by whatever expensive but capable 5D milling machine wants the work. Originally the Lightning cost an inflation-adjusted £5 million, dirt cheap, so we have lots of wiggle room with expensive materials and techniques vs the hundreds of millions modern aircraft cost. As a conservative estimate, with alloys and structure simplification I think a 5% weight improvement should be possible.

What do we change? Change is expensive and messes up things like certification etc. So this should be minimized. But, there are things that need to go.

First, the engines. Rolls Royce Avons were remarkable at the time. But we can do better. Swapping in the EJ200 Eurofighter engines is an off-the-shelf way of dropping 600kg and increasing dry thrust 10% and reheat by 15% while dropping 20% specific fuel consumption. Even better, they're smaller in diameter, freeing up volume for a much needed extra fuel. I estimate about 250l by extending the belly fuel tank up into vacated engine space above and to the rear.

Avionics, 1950-1970's era stuff was bulky, heavy & unreliable, swap it out for something off the shelf, something from the top-end of the general aviation world e.g. <link>. Everything else can likely be cobbled together from legacy fighters and a Raspberry Pi. I estimate a conservative 200kg saving here.

Next, a few tweaks. Titanium leading edges, for high speed, a few composite panels here and there for weight and a nice metalized bubble canopy for the look, I think we can drop another 200kg.

So, now we have a Lightning with a dry weight down to 12,000kg, with 10% more fuel that burns it 20% more efficiently to address range, the Lightning's main flaw. It has more thrust and so will be able to do this <link> even more impressively than before. Even with delays & overruns it should still be in service faster and cheaper than the F35 while easily outflying it.