F.53s in ground attack or reconnaissance t
departed Dhahran for Khamis.
Phil Isaac recalls: “At Khamis we armed
the aircraft up and I’m probably one of the
few people who saw the Lightnings y out
fully armed and come back with guns red
and 1,000lb bombs missing from the pylons
underneath the wings. Seeing the Lightnings
in action was quite something.”
The military incursion was defeated by
successive waves of Lightning F.53s using
bombs and rockets in the close air support
role.
In February 1970, Lightning 53-697, in
recce t, indicated a re warning to the pilot,
causing him to eject. It subsequently crashed
on the Khamis high plateau, but on the
Yemeni side of the border.
A Saudi C-130 Hercules landed to recover
the pilot and pieces of wreckage – a neat
hole from a ri e bullet being discovered in the
No.1 reheat system.
Training resumed at Dhahran as the
aircraft returned from Khamis, with Hedley
Molland as a weapons instructor. Most
students were experienced F-86 pilots
(including the three from the rst Lightning
Conversion Course) who had earlier been
recalled to y Sabre operations during the
recent con ict.
Hedley remembers: “The RSAF major
who was boss of the LCU would allow only
myself to lead the students on ring details,
which was great as on that rst course we
were allowed full loads of 2in rockets and 100
rounds of ammo per trip – 50 rounds per gun.“The range trips allowed the students to
get used to recovering from a 30mm cannon
pass at 250ft, which was quite low when in a
15° dive for those not used to it.
“We could take QFIs in the right-hand seat
when we led a formation on the range, but
they were denied live ring. Leading in the
two-seaters was not liked by us ‘weaponeers’
as the T.55 lacked the ability to carry bombs
or other air-to-ground weapons.
“The 30mm gun installation in the ventral
tank proved a very difficult system to get to
work properly. The feed mechanism was
forever jamming and in 1972 an aircraft [53-
666, the rst F.53] was lost at Khamis when ahigh-explosive round went off in the starboard
cannon bay and the ventral fuel ignited.
“The 1,000lb bombs were inert and
weighted with concrete. There were also
problems with bombs not releasing from the
pylons: one student had his bomb release
when well into the pull-out and 1,000lb of
metal and concrete soared off to land well to
the south of the range.
“On one trip, both bombs hung up on me
and on another I had to return with one. That
was a ‘dodgy do’, as if they had released on
touchdown they would have bounced back
off the runway and removed my wings, so the
landings were very gentle!36 Aviation News incorporating Jets March 2017A Lightning F.53 of 2 Sqn
dropping inert bombs,
singly, on a range.Lightning T.55 55-711 ‘A’ enters a loop.32-39_lightning_saudiDC.mfDC.mf.indd 36 06/02/2017 13:26