Vulcan 4 ship scramble - Finningley 1981

[ricardian]

Amateur cine film, a bit shaky in places!
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Footage is © Kris Cochrane

[langleybaston]

Thank you.
I was there, running the Met Office display tent with Katy the Weather dog.

[Herod]

Nice one. The last scramble I saw was at Waddington in 1979(?). They departed left to right of the crowd, then did a 270 left turn to pass overhead, joining into loose stream. Sixteen Olympus at climb power: the earth moved!!

[Gannet Driver]

Never mind the shaky, good footage! I assume you had stripe sound?

If you haven't already, post it on Youtube - should be shared wider.

If you PM me with your email address, can send you an account of HMS Centaur's VERY close encounter with a Vulcan. Would happily post it in this Forum but uncertain which thread.

Mike

[phil9560]

This thread Gannet Driver.

[Gannet Driver]

Roger, Wilco tomorrow.

Mike

[Gannet Driver]

As promised,

Mike

The Visiting Vulcan





It was 1965, and HMS Centaur's last summer. This meant an agreeable Med cruise despite plenty of hard work for a slightly smaller than usual Air Group. It included spells ashore in Malta and Gib, several interesting visits elsewhere, a NATO exercise and an unusual day with a Vulcan.

Much of what took place with the Vulcan during the morning involved interceptions at high level, with Sea Vixens departing and returning. Later in the day, almost all aircraft had been struck down with just a few beyond the safety line forr'ard when the Vulcan asked to come and do a fly-by.

Within minutes, what seemed like most of the Ship's Company was on the Flight Deck, that big (then) white bat has always been a crowd-puller. My memories of the arrival and initial fly-by are a bit vague, but I'll never forget the finale.

One of the pilots must have done a Fleet Air Arm exchange at some point. On the Flight Deck we couldn't hear the radio exchanges but it was clear they were doing a standard carrier join. In from astern and up the starboard side close to the ship at 400 feet.

10 seconds ahead of the ship and then a port break onto the downwind leg. Wheels down, flap down, finals turn and there it was - huge and looming at us, they had clearly picked up the mirror and were coming straight down the Glideslope......

We stood silent, rooted with fascination as it got bigger. When the Vulcan reached about 100 feet a voice said "Bloody 'ELL!" and there was a concerted dive for the catwalks.

At the last moment, the Vulcan lazily lifted the starboard wing to avoid the island (just!), opened up all four Olympus engines to full chat, flew along the port side of the angled deck just above the highest object (the Mirror Sight was about 10 feet high) and then pulled up as close to the vertical as it could. The sight was impressive, the noise was bone-shaking.

The Vulcan leveled off, waggled its wings and departed. And about a thousand of us climbed sheepishly out of the catwalks.......

[MPN11]

I had the pleasure of being in Waddington Local for the last full-blooded 1 Gp exercise involving a survival scramble. When was that? 1982, I guess.

At the magic moment, The Bomber Controller (did he wear a top hat, like the Fat Controller from Thomas The Tank Engine?) declared "Scramble". The 4 Waddington sqns fired up and headed for the active runway. Something similar was happening at a subsidiary bomber station north of Lincoln.

Now I can't recall how many aircraft Waddington generated that day, but I could guess 25-30. As Herod noted above, the earth moved. Indeed, with the valued assistance of the Scampton Wing, I assume a large part of Lincolnshire vibrated for 5 minutes or so.

The Wings departed on their designated fan tracks, each having 4 tracks at 5° spacing with #5 using track 1 et seq and all broadly heading in the same direction. And it was at that stage that the sound was replaced by the sight of innumerable Olympus smoke trails climbing away from both bases, drawing their geometric pattern against a clear blue sky (yes, Lincs does occasionally have clear blue skies).

The sight and sound of both Wings launching everything they had has stayed with me vividly ever since. It makes me go all poetic! :)

[ricardian]

Another bit of ancient video from YouTube - Vulcan bomb loading:

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[Hamish 123]

MPN,

I might have seen that. I was at Cranwell Nov '82 - Mar '83, and one particular day, we were doing leadership exercise round the back of the college. In the distance, there was a lot of rumbling, and we could pick out the smoky exhaust trails as the aircraft climbed out. I vaguely recall some surprise from our flight commander (himself ex Vulcans) at so many being airborne at once.

[romeo bravo]

Remembering those lazy days back in the late 70s/early 80s when the Vulcan Force used to use RAF Wittering for land aways and QRA practices. Would watch them travel over my secondary school into Wittering, thean after school I would cycle up to near the A1 and wait for the fun :ok:

[JointShiteFighter]

Thank you for sharing.

[smujsmith]

My fondest memory of the tin triangle was of 9 and 35 doing a survival scramble in 1973, I think they deployed to Malta and other bases. The departure was awesome, their return three days later no less so. It led to my first and only charge during my 30 years of service.

I was detailed to guard a strip of ground adjacent to the peri track, near to the TASF hangar, and was happily "plying my troth" on the return of the said V bombers. With them all returning at a similar time, there was the predictable queue along the taxiway as the groundcrew marshalled them back to their parking slots. I well remember seeing a "victory sign" being thrown my way from a passing bomber, obviously the product of a puerile young co pilot, who couldn't recognise that my part in the exercise was as important as his. I duly reciprocated his salute, and thought no more of it, until summoned to my Flight Commander to face a charge of offensive behaviour toward superior personell, or some such. Bottom line, I argued, it cost me more, and the ten pound fine certainly ensured I reduced my Keo input that week. I hope the co pilot is reading this and feels as guilty as hell, somehow, I doubt it.

Smudge :ok: