Pilot's View

摘要

When I arrived at RAF Bin brook to undertake my conversion to the Lightning, I was following a well-trodden, yet still intimidating, path. I had had a good grounding in the rudimentary elements of fast jet aviation, yet the Lightning was going to present new challenges.rnRAF fast-jet flying training had given me a basic set of skills- up to a point. In the Hawk, we had flown an efficient single-engine, straight-wing, twin-seat, training aircraft that had no vices. My new mount, by contrast, was a single-seater, twin-engined, highly swept and burned fuel like it was going out of fashion.rnIn addition,the contrastin cockpit environments was staggering. That of the Lightning was an afterthought. One could almost seethe designer, head in hands overthe drawing board, with the 'thinks' bubble saying: "Where am I going to putthe pilot?". Itwas as if he had found a bucketful of dials and switches, poured them in and they stayed where they fell. But the most daunting challenge came in the shape of the 'wellie boot', down which you had to peer to see what was happening on the radar screen. Cathode ray-tube technology of the time was not up to daylight viewing, and the 'boot' had to be used to avoid burning out the tubes too quickly.