Sheer exhilaration. Sheer performance. The pastoral panorama of expansive East Anglian fields, verdant with thriv ing young crops, edged with clumps of Constable trees and basking in the misty morning sunshine of early summer, was relentlessly pushed downwards and behind us as we surged forward, increasingly gathering momentum seconds after rotating from Wattisham's runway and headed for the North Sea. Such was our acceleration that even a deft movement of the stick occasioned by the need to make a slight course correction caused an immediate squeezing of the legs as my anti-G suit automatically responded to the induced force of 3Gs. Minutes later, and after exceeding l.OOOmph on our way up, we levelled out at 60,000ft, where the sun blazed down through our Perspex canopy from out of a sky which was as dark as indigo velvet. The vehicle which had provided this thrill of a lifetime and transported me so close to Heaven was the greatest British fighter since the Spitfire — the Lightning...