Lightning Force and credit must go to the
commanding officer of the LCU who arranged
the whole thing and ew the lead on the day.”
Spring 1975 was blighted by the
assassination of King Faisal but after a brief
hiatus normal conversion activity continued,
including range work with 2 Sqn (that had
stood up on the Lightning in 1969) which was
co-located at Dhahran.
Target-towing Canberras of the RAF’s 100
Sqn visited later in the year to enable Saudi
aircrew to practise live air-to-air ring of the
guns. The following year, 2 Sqn relocated
to King Faisal Air Base at Tabuk in the
northwest.
The LCU disbanded in May 1977, re-
forming as 13 Sqn. The RAF instructors
had returned to the UK and only four ex-pats
remained, but there were several Saudi
instructors.
The RSAF’s 6 Sqn at Khamis also
disbanded in 1977 (the unit having had the
Lightning since 1966), with pilots and aircraft
redistributed between the remaining units –
13 Sqn at Dhahran and 2 Sqn at Tabuk. This
was part way through Course No.13, at the
end of which the LCU had converted a grand
total of 71 pilots.Two aircraft received trial camou age with
53-692 ‘L’ (now at the Museum of Aviation,
Warner Robins, Georgia) gaining a wrap-
around sand/brown scheme and 53-670 ‘F’
(now at Tangmere Military Aviation Museum,
West Sussex) taking on camou aged upper
surfaces and light blue undersides. The paint
made the aircraft hard to detect but increased
fuel consumption, so was removed.WEAPONS PRACTICE
There were no students for 13 Sqn in 1978 so
the instructors concentrated on operational
training, including practice scrambles from the
QRA (quick reaction alert) sheds.
Although the Vinten reconnaissance
pack had not been used on the LCU, Hedley
Molland, who had been made a tutor on the
recce pack, used wax-pencil crosses on the
canopy to work out roughly what the oblique
cameras would record on the ground.
He also ew a second aircraft to look up
into the camera lenses and to observe the
results – presented as several feet of self-
portraits on 70mm negative lm.
Practice with the 2in rockets on the LCU
had been limited to only two per door, but as
13 Sqn was now an operational squadron,two almost full doors were allowed, totalling
42 rockets.
The three central tubes on each door were
left empty, because if the head of a partly
red rocket remained poking from the tube,
the doors would not close and the protrusion
would prevent the nosewheel locking down.
The projectiles often went in all directions
before achieving a sensible trajectory, but
no problems resulted and their large spread
obliterated the targets – circles in the sand
marked out with oil drums.
Range work was usually done at the
end of a low-level cross-country exercise,
as Hedley explains: “We could get down to
realistic heights on the cross-country part.
Judging height over featureless sand required38 Aviation News incorporating Jets March 2017Lightning 53-679 ‘F’ of 13 Sqn at Dhahran ring a Firestreak missile at a target are launched
from an F-5.Eleven Lightnings in an ‘F’ formation to mark
King Faisal’s visit to Dhahran in 1974.A Lightning F.53 of 2 Sqn, still bearing its old 13 Sqn badge, alongside a newly delivered F-15C of 13 Sqn in February 1982.32-39_lightning_saudiDC.mfDC.mf.indd 38 06/02/2017 13:26