Lightning strike

[elmayerle]

Wooksta, perhaps for a follow-on you could do a later variant Lightning carrying a pair of AIM-68's?

Dimensionally the AIM-68 looks to be fairly close to an AIM-47 in "wingspan" and body diameter, though you'd have to cut out a sectiona and add the front fins to finish it.

[elmayerle]

That might be better fitted to a Lightning F3 or F6 - think there's a block of cancelled numbers for the latter.

*Evil grin*  You're tempting me here, that would definitely be an interesting bird to model.  It might be interesting to do an F.6a with the export wings and two AIM-68's under the wings as well as along the fueslage side (though I could see mounting something "tamer" on the fuselage).

[elmayerle]

That configuration works for me.  Another one to put on the "to do" list.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Mercury spillage can and will be fatal to an airframe. It causes savage intergranular corrosion that permeates between rivetted joints and causes fatal structural failure in aircraft.

Hi Tony;

IRT the use of mercury around aircraft.  I am curious to know why this hazardous material was being used around aircraft in the first place. 

I used to work at the Navy Supply Center here in Bremerton, Washington in a "mercury free working environment" because the program I was involved with was working with critical replacement parts and materials for submarines and surface ships.  I was very aware of the hazards of mercury exposure to other metals and for this reason, I would like to know what mercury was doing around an airframe to begin with.  Very bad ju ju for all concerned when the metal fails and you fall out of the sky, but worse yet when you are in a submarine and something fails and the people tank is violated.

[The Rat]

My take is that what ifs are reality that went sideways and therefore all the rules that apply to real aircraft also apply thus to what ifs.

I know what you mean. I've been doing the same thing myself actually, only being able to throw up my hands when i) all else fails, and ii) I realise that there's no chance of anyone taking my stuff seriously!

It also takes a fair bit of knowledge to pull off the stuff you do, so that you can stay within the plausible. That's something that goes beyond modeling skills (which I don't exactly have in spades anyway ), and involves detailed information about the real aircraft's capabilities, possibilities, and believable alternate realities. And I have even less of that.  ^_^  

[Spellbinder99]

I don't know what the circumstances were with the Lightning, but the Airbus incident was caused by mislabelling the shipment wither by accident or by intent. There are occasions when doing various servicings on aircraft that it is required to determine the exact temperature of the airframe for the purposes of tensioning control wires etc., so it may have been in the pre-digital days of the Lightning F1 that a large mercury filled thermometer was being used which was breached and caused the write off.

Cheers

Tony