Lightning

But not the weather variety. This weekend sees me indulge 2 of my passions. Aviation, and the photography thereof. Ever since I was a wee lad I’ve loved looking at planes. At the age of 14 this turned into a love for flying planes, and at the age of 17 I became one of the 1% of all pilots who get their Private Pilots Licence as early as is legally possible (the CAA won’t issue a licence to anyone under 17, but you can complete the rest of the course before then). Around 5 years ago I discovered that I actually have a keen eye for the photography of planes, and so with my brother we formed PGS Photographic (the site will be rebuilt shortly).

So this weekend sees me off to Binbrook (near Hull) to photograph one of the most beautiful and powerful aircraft the RAF have ever flown. The English Electric Lightning. These things stopped flying just before I can remember going to airshows with my family, and so I’ve never seen one in the air. There’s only one place in the world where this can be seen, and that’s in South Africa (one of the things I have to do someday). So why bother going to Binbrook this weekend to photograph an aircraft on the ground? It’s the sheer power of the thing. As anyone who has ever been near a Lightning when it is running will tell you, it’s incredible. Keith Hartley, who flies the Lightnings (lucky chap) at Thunder City in South Africa describes it as “strapping yourself to a pair of rockets and then lighting them”.

This weekend is the first time in 2 years that this particular lightning has had its engines running, and there is hope that the afterburner on one of the engines will be lit as it has been the painstaking work of a good friend of mine to get everything into working order. Will it light? Who knows? And half of the fun is the anticipation that it might! I’ll get some photos up next week. Suffice to say that tomorrow is a very rare opportunity, and one that I jumped at the chance of taking.