EE Lightning Modellers Datafile

BAC Lightning is one of the most important British fighter airplane and the last one solely developed by the British industry. This plane serve as the in the defense role of the British land and other operators of the type was Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. And there was the only place where this planes was used in combat as fighter plane but also in the ground attack sorties. Finally type was withdrawn from RAF service in the 1992 and the plane was replaced in service by Phantom and Tornado. Type was reminded in the memory as the very handful and only problem which plague type during the whole career is the small endurance.

SAM Publishing from Bedford, UK, had in its publishing range one of the most interesting series of publication for the air enthusiast and modelers and this is well known “Modellers Datafile” series of book. As you guess one of the books in this series is book about this great fighter plane. Book full name is “The English Electric LIGHTNING” and this is a comprehensive guide for the modeler. Author of this title is Richard J. Caruana. Whole book have eleven chapters, ten appendixes and one large fold out with a number of the scale drawings of the type.
First part of the book is covered with the history of the plane, development early testing and production development. Include a great number of the archive images and many of them are never seen before complete info about the type construction and service information. This includes the units and the operators of this plane. Information find there is amazing such as the action held by the 111. Squadron in the 1965 when they are intercepted one high flying U-2 from USAF for which was believed that due to the high flying capabilities can not be intercepted by the any fighter plane.

In follow to this section is the fourteen pages of the color profiles made by author and there is total of 42 color profiles with all operational camouflage pattern included, units and extra details of the unit emblems and insignia. After this is the short review of the available kits of this plane and to my surprise this very interesting plane is not much explored by the manufacturer and market still miss one complete and accurate kit.

For the better understanding of subject here is 29 pages with technical drawings of details, extract from manual and axonometric drawings of all versions of the type since the first prototype up to the end models and more to this all of this sketch include description and suggestion how to get the model of the same from the available kits from the market!! For all who would like to see more details there is more ages with great number of the close up images of the airplanes preserved in museums.

And this is not the all- separate chapter is for the same camouflage and markings of the Lightning. There is in detail explained all about the same camouflage finishing and protection, unit insignia, changes and variations with all data included for the RAF as well Saudi and Kuwait machines. Great number of color drawings is made to close describe subject and of interest is that all dimensions and data was also provided as well for the national marking as for the style of lettering. Color is given by the referred BS color system with the data in FS color system table.

Final pages of the book is reserved for the appendixes where is summarized all of the vital information about the scale kits, variants of the Lightning, service, units, operators… really power pack of info in the several pages. And when the all bonded pages are over you have one more addition- fold out pages where is represent all of the major variants of the Lightning in scale drawings. Scale is 1/72 and they are very nice done.

And at and I can only shout “Bravo maestro” for this marvelous book!!! Just to note- this book is not going to be reprinted so better think about it!!

Title- The English Electric Lightning

Author- Richard J. Caruana

Subject-  British fighter plane Lightning

Publisher-  SAM Publication

Form-  A4 softbound

Size – 128 pages, English text, color’s, fold out’s

ISBN number-  0-9533465-7-9

Srecko Bradic

Sample of publication is provided by Neil Robinson, Editor of the MAM magazine