About This Site

When first created in 1994 (then known as The Hangar), the reason was purely that there were plenty of American aircraft on the web, but very little about British types. From the initial beginnings of simply showing off a few photos of each type it's been expanded so that each type has a history page, sometimes a memories page, a list of surviving examples (with as many pictures as we can get hold of), and a picture gallery including walkaround shots for modellers, topped off with a page listing additional web sites you can visit and books etc. to read. Hopefully it acts as a jumping off point for you to learn more about any aircraft you become interested in.

Aside from the individual aircraft sections, the site also has an Airfield Viewing Guide, which is a guide to various airfields in the UK and where you should go to get decent pictures (or just read off serials if you're into that side of thing) plus a collection of links to other sites worth visiting

We always welcome submissions of good photographs to add to these pages, so if you have a picture you'd like displayed, get in touch - we can be contacted via the contact page.

The criteria for including an aircraft on this site are simple:

1. It must have been operated by the British military, spending most of its useful service life in the years after 1945. So you're not going to see Spitfires here, but you may see Meteors (if I get round to it!).
2. There must be at least one surviving example which the public can view (e.g. in a museum).

Suggestions for other aircraft to cover are gratefully received. We will lean towards covering the popular choices first, though we reserve the right to do whatever we feel like!

Thunder & Lightnings has many contributors but is mostly authored and run by myself, Damien Burke, with Jake Wallace assisting with survivors admin and profile drawings.

This site is Copyright © 2024 Handmade by Machine Ltd., All Rights Reserved. This copyright covers these pages and all images credited to 'author' or uncredited; you may not re-publish any image or content from this site without my express permission. This includes:

• Posting them to newsgroups, social media (Facebook etc) - instead please refer people to this site
• Displaying them on your own web site (ask first - we may have different images you can use instead of just duplicating the ones here). If you steal images from this site we will take action.
• Displaying any image from this site by linking to the file here (this will not be tolerated)
• Publication on CD or in books or magazines (we can negotiate an appropriate fee - do not expect to just offer a copy of the CD or book or whatever)

Extracts from the text or screenshots of the site may be reproduced within reason (e.g. for review purposes) provided you inform me and credit me by name and with the location of this site (www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk). Images credited to another party remain that party's copyright and you must ask their permission if you want to use the images for anything other than personal use.

Personal use: you're quite welcome to use them as wallpaper on your computer, as reference for modelling, and so on.

If you see a picture credited 'author' (Damien Burke) that you particularly like, and would like a print or enlargement of it, get in contact and we'll see what we can sort out.