With its tail fin severed and wings well and truly clipped, it’s difficult to imagine that this forlorn hulk once helped pave the way for Britain’s most iconic fast jet interceptor: the English Electric Lightning. After a series of prototypes had culminated in the production of the P.1B, which reached Mach 2 in 1958, the RAF’s first operational Lightning variant, the F1, wasn’t far behind. Forty-two Lightning F1s were built, including a pre-production batch of 20 development jets and three static test airframes. The neglected hulk seen here, serial number XG327, was one of those development aircraft.
English Electric Lightning F1 XG327 was built in March 1959 and was retained by English Electric for trials work for several years thereafter. By the start of 1961 she had moved to the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE) at RAF Boscombe Down in Wiltshire, before transferring to RAE Bedford in 1966 for supersonic noise tests.
But by 1968, less than a decade after her maiden flight, Lightning XG327 had been retired to ground instructional duties. Adopting the maintenance serial 8188M, she joined No.5 School of Technical Training (SoTT) at RAF St Athan in South Wales. XG327 endured for several decades in the ground instructional role, before perishing in the fire pits of Manston alongside a number of other iconic British aircraft of the Cold War era. Taken in 1982, the above photograph shows the Lightning F1 before the burnings began in earnest.
Related: Rare Photo of Unused English Electric Lightning Fuselage at Stone, Staffordshire
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