#DAIL MAIL PILOT THROTTLE BROKE PROFESSIONAL#

He was a professional photographer who lived near the airfield, next door to de Havilland test pilot Bob Sowray. Jim Meads is the man who took the picture. How does someone manage to take a photograph like this? Planning, quick wits and a healthy dose of luck. However, the very last photograph taken of XG332, in 1962, is deservedly the most famous one. Alan Sinfield took a photograph of XG332 in 1960 at Farnborough: It was built in 1959, one of 20 pre-production Lightnings. The aircraft in the photograph was XG332. The Lightning was the only British designed and built fighter capable of speeds in excess of Mach 2 to serve with the Royal Air Force. The early prototypes evolved into the Lightning, an aeroplane which was to span the time from when the Spitfire was our primary front-line fighter to the end of the Cold War. The ER103 design study was sufficiently impressive for English Electric to be awarded the contract for two prototypes and a structural-test airframe. It was designed and created by the English Electric Aviation Company, who’d been contracted to develop a jet bomber at the end of World War II.

The aircraft is an English Electric Lightning F1.

But the story of who took the photograph and how he managed to get the shot is a good one. I was surprised at how much I discovered about the photo, which at first glance I thought might be a fake. A reader mailed me this amazing aviation photograph and I knew I wanted to know more.

Dail mail pilot throttle broke