This was taken from the 1970's BBC TV series Sailor. It followed the Ark royal during a deployment in 1976.

A very interesting documentary.

The only footage I ever saw of that Ark Royal was it being scrapped on Blue Peter. Wasn't there another carrier in service around the same time?

Originally Posted by spoiltb

The only footage I ever saw of that Ark Royal was it being scrapped on Blue Peter. Wasn't there another carrier in service around the same time?

Yeah i remember that, i recall them mentioning how many razor blades it would make...

Lightnings are very, very unlikely to have done carrier landings at Pensacola and even less likely to have done launches. The tyres, which were prone to exploding under a hard landing would have been a problem, and the hook wasn't stressed to take a carrier arrested landing - it was for emergency RHAG gear.

That said, there were plans in the early to mid 60s to produce a naval Lightning. It'd have been based on the trainer (side-by-side seating), but would've had variable geometry wings:



This never left the drawing board.

I believe that Lightnings did make some er... informal carrier approaches, much to the consternation of the RN, who sent messages complaining about the air force being silly when this sort of thing happened.

The Germans used the Starfighters for maritime attack duties and they used a cunning launch and recovery system - using an airfield... They were land based for all their career, just as the Marineflieger Tornado fleet was purely for land based maritime attack and recce against Soviet ships in the Baltic area.

Here is the Wikipedia link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ark_Royal_(R09)

Originally Posted by Archimedes

The Germans used the Starfighters for maritime attack duties and they used a cunning launch and recovery system - using an airfield...

Those cunning little Croats!

More on the Ark Royal from someone that was on the tour, including great pic of last launch. http://www.axfordsabode.org.uk/pdf-docs/arkroy27.pdf

I would doubt that the undercarriage of a Lightning would support catapult take-offs let alone landings. As I said before, I will post what this guy in the US says if he responds. It was 1964, could be part of some 'Nam flashback.

Didn't the USN (USS Forrestal before the fire) land and launch a C 130 ?

Originally Posted by Cr33p

Originally Posted by spoiltb

The only footage I ever saw of that Ark Royal was it being scrapped on Blue Peter. Wasn't there another carrier in service around the same time?

Yeah i remember that, i recall them mentioning how many razor blades it would make...

Would that be HMS EAGLE?

Originally Posted by Falling-Plate

This was taken from the 1970's BBC TV series Sailor. It followed the Ark royal during a deployment in 1976.

A very interesting documentary.

That was a great programme.