The English Electric Lightning flew for the first time on December 1959. And it entered into production and frontline duty on 1960.
It achieved an excellent performance, and was very easy to fly, however, during the first months of service the serviceability was very poor because of the lack of spare parts and the inadequability of the ground equipment to serve correctly these airplanes. The first squadron to fly them, was the No.74 Squadron. at Coltishall, on 1960.
An improved version, the Mk.1A featured better avionics and could support an air-to-air refuelling probe.
The F. Mk.2 was an improved version that flew first on 1961 and entered service with the 19th squadron on 1962 and with the 92nd one in 1963. Conversion that was made possible thanks to the 226th OCU (Operational Conversion Unit).
Due to the better performance of the McDonnel-Douglas F-4 Phantom II, which were better both in range and speed, and the development of the co-joint project, Panavia Tornado, they were replaced, mostly by this last one, with it's interceptor variant, the F.3.
They served in most of the operational theaters, from the United Kingdom to Singapore passing through Cyprus and Germany.
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