(Roy) wrote in
:

Vertically mounted engines in the tail and an English aircraft would
have to be the "BAe Lightning" Kind of weird aircraft but they were
rather hi tech in their day......A lot of Arab countries flew them
like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, or most original British colonies at one
time flew them..........When I was in the Kuwait after Desert Storm,
they had them on pedestals all over the place like stops signs would
be in america. Capable of MACH II
Check out below link if this is aircraft your thinking of.

http://www.museumofaviation.org/airc...rs/19-mk53.htm



The English Electric (later BAe)Lightning, known as the frightening by
new pilots, was an interesting plane. Its two engines where actually
'over and under' and one behind the other so giving two engines in the x
section of 1. In clean configuration could climb vertical and exceed mach
without AB, with AB there was some dispute - mach 2 was the official
speed but the russians listed it as 2.4. Was the the first 'supercruise'
fighter, broke most speed records in the late fifties and still holds
some time to height records. As a kid growing up in Scotland I used to
see them taking off to intercept Russians, they roll off three abreast,
stay low over the runway with gear up and when up to speed went vertical
with Ab on. All the grass was dead for about two hundred yards around the
end of the runway from the unburnt fuel. traing aircraft had a side by
side cockpit like the training hunters.. Still some flying in South
Africa.

The problem with the lightning was it had less than 800 miles fuel so the
pilots where practicing fuel management even before it got off the ground
and an interception flight needed refueling every 30 minuites.