Vulcan Data - Myths or Reality?

[AH Veteran]

Ok, this is probably one for the likes of BEagle but:

Is it true that the Vulcans which were on QRA (or whatever it was called then) during the Cold War were only able to carry enough fuel to get them to their intended targets in western USSR and some of the way back, rather than a full round trip to Blighty? I have heard it said many times in the crewroom but have never had it confirmed.

I would be very grateful if any PPruners could shed some light on this one.

Thanks,

AHV

[BOAC]

Never touched the beast but I very much doubt they would be coming back to 'Blighty' after Armageddon, if it was even habitable?

[Bobby Buffet]

Well some of the farthest reaching targets had us planned as getting just 15 minutes up the road from delivery point before we all had to jump out of our trusty old flat iron as we ran out of fuel . . but of course we were young and impressionable then so we were full of sense of duty and pride of our mother country. Brings a tear to my eye . . . or at least I bet it would have done !

[Pontius Navigator]

Very few aircraft were planned to return to UK. In the days of the 1st Edn War SOP, up to 1964, we were instructed to ring the embassy or consulate or who ever, for further orders.

In early days that was not as daft as it seemed as the numbers of weapons was still relatively small.

As for Bobby Buffet, what he says is not exactly true but there is some truth in what he said although it was 10 minutes not 15 and related not to QRA but to certain missions from some place. OTOH I know some missions had thousands of pounds spare.

The normal peacetime landing limit was 8000lbs later increased to 10k. In wartime fuel was planned down to 4k. 4k guaged in 14 tanks could be not a lot. Although we could fly a long way on not a little fuel on a cruise descent, we were actually planned to recover to the recovery base at height. The descent glide would be used to get to a suitable runway.

One mission we had was about a 460 mile penetration to Kiev and almost 600 miles exit to Turkey.

On reflection I think it was 10 miles and not 10 minutes!

[Yellow Sun]

All the targets I covered whilst on the Vulcan in the late 60s early 70s had a planned recovery airfield. None of the recovery airfields were in the UK however and some (most?) appeared a tad optimistic. I am led to believe that in later years this was not always the case.

I did hear mention that there had been a study made of the feasibility of mounting second strikes utilising recovered aircraft. It really does sound a bit of a long shot though on many counts. Maybe there is something in the files at Kew about this.

One mission we had was about a 460 mile penetration to Kiev and almost 600 miles exit to Turkey

We have something in common PN!

YS

[Pontius Navigator]

One thing people never comment on is how the planners knew all the routes would have sufficient fuel. Well the planner at Bomber Command used a very simple rule.

First, all the routes were planned on a 3m chart. Major positions on the route might be a 100 mile arc based on Flamborough Head, then tracks would fly parallel to a straight line position, such as the Go Line before flying dense parallel tracks toward a few chosen penetrations points. Aircraft would be planned to fly through penetration points perhaps 4-5 miles wide in as short a period as possible, say 15-20 minutes.

Once through the coastal SAM screen and out into the hinterland the force would disperse although some notional corridors were used. Aircraft would join the corridor at some point and others would leave at others. It was carefully designed to suggest that a couple of aircraft were flying in a particular direction towards a particular target.

Now for fuel. I took all the crew planned fuel and timings down to Bomber once. With one glance they were rejected as rubbish. Back home, closer analysis revealled gross errors, usually by the copilots. The 7000lb bomb had been used as fuel; the 325k low level had been fuel planned at 250k but 325k timing; wrong graphs; gross errors; planned descent at destination etc.

How had our man at Bomber known they were wrong as he only saw a one page summary?

His rule of thumb was to take the fuel used from take-off to top of descent, from top of descent to final climb point. From final climb point to over head recovery base. He would multiple the low level portion by 3, add them together and reach a figure of about 5100 miles. This would be compared against the Vulcan high level fuel graph and the maximum distance that could be flown in high level cruise from full to empty.

Determined not to be caught out again I made a simple transparency with climb, cruise, low level, and descent segments on one sheet. When the copilots were not looking I would simply lay my graph on theirs. Immediately it would show all the errors, even a 10k or one hour miss plot. The errors were invariably in the crew favour; if the misplot showed mission impossible the crew would usually pick that up.

[BEagle]

I recall recalculating the fuel supposedly required for a 'National Joke Plan' target and found that we would have needed far, far more than had been allocated.

The recovery aerodrome was not in the UK.

In reality it would have been a one way trip. We all accepted that.

[Green Flash]

I presume the Bear drivers going the other way would have had similer thoughts, or does/did they have the legs to have got home/somewhere else??

[BOAC]

Judging by the tactics and range of those I intercepted, they would have been fine!

Refuel inbound off North Cape, enormous endurance - 12hrs+? and refuel those that were left again at North Cape on return.

[Wader2]

GF,

For the US, Cuba was a possibility. So too would Conakary been in range. A quick look at Autoroute (statute miles) shows a central Russian location, over the pole, through Canada, to SAC HQ and then an exit to west Africa was a mere 10000 miles. Back to the USSR was also a possibility.

For the UK it was a simple question of any base in the USSR, they were all within range, but my guess was that the UK would have been targetted by the other bombers such as Badger, Blinder and Backfire where range was far more significant. Still as they had a significant number of ASMs they did not face quite the same threat as the V-Force faced.

[50+Ray]

For what it is worth none of my routes recovered to UK. There were occasional arguments that the route needed e.g. double drums to have any chance of completion, when only A&E might be available. The fuel at destination was never taken too seriously, we were expecting to depart from bases that would become radioacctive rubble before we got to top of climb, so the concept was somewhat academic. Seldom mentioned was how much fuel might be wasted in survival scramble + hold + political mind changing and then finally go with what you have got. Yes, we would have gone anyway.

[JOE-FBS]

This is a bit second-hand but I had a teacher in secondary school who had been a navigator on Javelins and Vulcans and I remember him telling me that they assumed that the landing sites for their planned war missions would not be there if they ever arrived at them.

Sobering stuff even for a 15 year old space cadet in 1980!

PS his name was Mr Siviter if he or anyone out there who remembers him is reading this. I think I've still got somewhere the navigation / bombing protractors he gave me.

[AH Veteran]

Thanks for the info, chaps. Very useful to hear what you've got to say and it is pretty sobering, thinking about how those guys used to kiss their wives goodbye every morning, not knowing whether or not they would be coming home...

Thanks,

AHV

:ok:

[forget]

Not to mention the ground-crew. We'd have been toast long before the out-bound tanks ran dry.:uhoh:

[Union Jack]

AHV - ... thinking about how those guys used to kiss their wives goodbye every morning, not knowing whether or not they would be coming home...

Forget - Not to mention the ground-crew.

Very touching but, given the circumstances, absolutely the right thing to do I'm sure!

Jack

[Pontius Navigator]

This is a bit second-hand but I had a teacher in secondary school who had been a navigator on Javelins and Vulcans and I remember him telling me that they assumed that the landing sites for their planned war missions would not be there if they ever arrived at them.


PS his name was Mr Siviter if he or anyone out there who remembers him is reading this. I think I've still got somewhere the navigation / bombing protractors he gave me.

I think I remember him, Bob?

assumed that the landing sites for their planned war missions would not be there if they ever arrived

Which is why the recovery was planned to overhead at 50k Plus. It also explains why airfields like Carnaby, East Kirkby, Spilsby etc, well off the dispersal list and hopefully off the target lists, had their runways maintained.

At Gardermoen, in 1966, our power set appeared brand new and was designed for B47s.

[Pom Pax]

I was told that pre the V force and perhaps also the Canberras that most Lincoln crews were not expected to be able to recover to the West and were issued with a map of the hiking trails home.
As I was told this in '57 you guys just inherited a preconceived plan except that the destruction at home had escalated and the targets were even further East.

[Pontius Navigator]

Pom Pax,

The Lincoln was really replaced as a stop gap by the Washington (B50). In those days it was probably unlikely that there were any nukes.

If possible you should read Plan Dropshot or Operation WW3 edited by Anthony Cave-Brown.

This was the US COS War Plans circa 1947 for war in 1957 and included plans for pre-emption. Cells of B29 (B50) would penetrate the USSR with perhaps 3 bombers, 3 ECM and 3 decoys.

Most interestingly was an estimate of what her allies could provide. Given that there was supposedly no cooperation between the British Labour Government and the US or indeed for some years later I was surprised that they assumed one and a half recce wings in Malta, 3 or 4 medium bomber wings in Cyprus, 2 bomber wings in Singapore. Later, apart from their being sqns rather than wings, this exactly mirrored our deployments. Malta had 13/39 sqns with part of one assigned to CENTO. Cyprus to CENTO and Singapore to SEATO complete with two purpose built medium bomber facilities.

I wonder whether there was secret cooperation at a sub-governmental level with the UK COS implementing secret infrastructure project to a US master plan.

Now that would be grist for the conspiracy theorists.

The subject of escape maps is a subject of its own.

[Green Flash]

Thnks for the fascinating stuff re the Bears. I would assume Cuba and maybe Conakry would be suffused with a warm glow long before Ivan arrived. I take the point re Blinders etc coming for the UK leaving the Bears to go Stateside. I'd love to sit a Bear driver down over many beers and get his take on things. Maybe you old! (sorry) V-force crews could arrange a p!ss up with your opposite numbers one day!

[Pontius Navigator]

GF, you are right, it would be fascinating although I think we would prefer to talk with Firebar and Flaggon aircrew.

I did try to establish a contact with Indonesian airmen. I got a good contact who, bless my soul, pointed me to a British academic who had researched the area and come up with what I needed (almost).

I think the area of counter-factual history might be an area for Dr Alf Price to research. His speciality is the face-to-face interview etc. He helped Len Deighton research Bomber and then went on to do this with non-fiction works interviewing bomber crews and Luftwaffe opponents.

He did a similar work with Jeffrey Ethel for the Falklands.

[Green Flash]

A social event for anyone with wings within 1 hour (max cruise) of the IGB (both sides, inc the Swedes and the Swiss!) the day the wall came down would be one hell of a do! :\ Might be more Sanatogen than Stella:} but I'd love to be a fly on that bar wall! Need a bloody big bar, mind.:ok:

[Pontius Navigator]

GF,

A friend of mine had such a conversation with a Swedish airman.

He also hosted a WPC Classic crew, Romanian or some such.

Come 4pm Friday he looked at his watch and suggested happy hour. The visitors looked distinctly uncomfortable. When he explained what was to happen they repaired to the Brize bar. "Was this something new now the wall had come down?" No, we do this every Friday.

"You do? We always stood to on Friday afternoons. We were told that this was when you would attack."

[Green Flash]

Correct! Attack the bar. Didn't we allways? If only we could have had a NATO v WP drinking competion. Mass casualties for sure, but the only collateral damage would be the plumbing.
Which reminds me; a visit by the Ruskies to an RAF exercise based at Stornoway (F3's closing the Back Door). Monday, Ivan rocks up bright and early. They are accomodated at the RA mess at Benbecula and are helo'd up to EGPO every day. That evening, a, ahem, 'reception':E is held at Benb (hosted by battle hardened, hand picked, RAF, Army and local artistes.) On Tuesday Red Air is a little late. Weds, ditto, but later. Thursday, no one seen until just before lunch. Friday, no one. The Water of Death! is doing it's stuff in the Mess. Saturday the remains of WP's finest are effectivley medivac'd back to London!

[Warmtoast]

Thread creep but FWIW the 1948 Berlin crisis was the catalyst to the creation of an effective U.S. nuclear strategy. A fascinating article can be found here:
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1981/jul-aug/borowski.htm

Until the arrival of Blue Danube, Red Beard et-al in the 1950's, the UK could only act as the USAF's unsinkable aircraft carrier and the article above shows the limitations to the late 1940's nuclear strategy, despite the despatch of 90 USAF B-29's to the UK as a sort of deterrence.

Even better from the same source is an article about "Anglo-American Strategic Air Power Co-operation in the Cold War and Beyond" which can be found here:

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj04/win04/finn.html

[AH Veteran]

Cripes! :uhoh:

[BEagle]

"By the end of 1945, there were 740 military airfields and dispersed operating sites in the United Kingdom, of which 159 were at some time occupied by USAAF units."

And nowadays....:hmm:

[JOE-FBS]

"PS his name was Mr Siviter if he or anyone out there who remembers him is reading this. I think I've still got somewhere the navigation / bombing protractors he gave me.

I think I remember him, Bob?"

To Pontius Navigator.

I don't know his first name, I didn't go to the kind of school where teachers had first names!

Anyway, if it is the chap you knew, he was teaching biology at Armthorpe (a few miles from Finningley) in the early eighties and was also my form teacher for a while. A very sound chap and very encouraging in my, subsequently failed, attempt to join the RAF.

Thanks.

[Green Flash]

BEags

Not many! http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/metars/stations.txt About 159 ICAO's all in, inc ranges, heliports etc