Did You Fly The Vulcan?? (Merged)

[ian16th]

This is an extract:

During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 I spent a week in the operations room bunker at Bomber Command headquarters, High Wycombe. Macmillan played down the British involvement in the affair, but what people didn’t realise was that we had the entire force of 100 V-bombers standing at 15 minutes’ readiness, bombs loaded and with the crews kitted up and ready to go, to drop nuclear bombs on Russia.
The whole thing seemed unreal. I remember on the Saturday of the critical weekend, when the crisis was at its worst, I went above ground for about 10 minutes to get some air, and the whole nation only seemed interested in some bloody football match.

from this:

The men of bomber command: The pilot, Sir Michael Beetham - Telegraph

[Pontius Navigator]

I know CinC Bomber Command had the authority to launch if contact was lost with the Government.

I also know that the Command exercised full force generation with live weapons twice per year.

I also know that the CinC, during a NATO wide PCX ordered full force generation 3 days in advance of SACEUR bringing NATO assigned nuclear forces to full readiness.

What I do not know is if the CinC was authorised on his own authority to bring the force to Alert Condition 3 as he did twice per year. If that authority was so delegated then it is possible that he had brought the force to readiness before MacMillan so ordered.

[ROC man]

Picking up on the thread in the military aviation section on WW 2 bombing and weather, if crews are at 5 and 15 mins readiness how often were they updated with the weather?

I appreciate that at FL500 or thereabouts you are above the weather but presumably wind adjustments are entered into a bombing computer and the jet streams will affect aircraft at different altitudes thus potentially affecting any coordination at time over target and deconfliction?

kind regards
chris

[27Musiicman]

Exercise "High Mars"

Does anyone recall Exercise "HIGH MARS"?
I recall reading an article by the late Chapman Pincher (of Daily Express fame) taking part in the exercise to test NORAD's air defences in the early 1960s I think.

[Pontius Navigator]

27M, not directly or by that name but 'The Penetrators' by Anthony Gray was a novel loosely based on that exercise.

The exercise was, I think, based on Goose Bay and involved a broad front high level penetration at high level of one of the radar defence lines.

Rumour had it that the US radars lacked certain ECCM features and was vulnerable to the relatively unsophisticated hammers on the Vulcans. I heard they achieved hard kills on some of the systems and the height and speed did the rest.

As I say though, this was only what I picked up as rumours a few years later.

[BEagle]

Pontius Navigator wrote:

'The Penetrators' by Anthony Gray was a novel loosely based on that exercise.

I have a copy of that book - it really is complete and utter garbage! The climax of a Vulcan exceeding M1.0 at low level over Washington being mistaken for a US Navy F4D-1 / F-6A Skyray was just laughable.

[Pontius Navigator]

I wasn't recommending the book but citing it as based on the exercise.

[alisoncc]

Rumour had it that the US radars lacked certain ECCM features and was vulnerable to the relatively unsophisticated hammers on the Vulcans. I heard they achieved hard kills on some of the systems and the height and speed did the rest.

Widely reported and spoken about in the crew room of 230 OCU B Sqdn circa '63-65. Especially amongst those who looked after the ECM.

[Treble one]

Operation Skyshield?

I think this is the exercise(s) under discussion?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Skyshield

[Pontius Navigator]

Trembler,that's the ones.

[BEagle]

'63-'65 was probably the last time the Vulcan ECM kit was of any great use.... By the time I did the Vulcan OCU, the senior AEOs reckoned that there were but a handful of Soviet radars against which it might have been of any use....and were rightly scathing about the RAF's reluctance to upgrade it.

In 1979, the US had to find something from a museum against which we could react in the EW phase of GIANT VOICE.

Although the Vulcan was given an ECM update for OP CORPORATE, of course. But the 'I band jammer' fitted to the Waddington fleet was a real Sparrow magnet for HOJ or RSOJ attacks - and I'm pretty sure that the Sovs had a similar capability by then.

[Pontius Navigator]

Once the force went low level the Shrimps and Divers were relegated to recovery phase. They were obviously not prepared to put money into recovery aids and with the future of the V-Force in doubt after 1968 . . .

Given its roles pre-FI, both in low level conventional attack and high level nuclear strike which still applied in some theatres, it would seem funds were going to the MRCA.

Now if they had fitted an AWG 9 and a battery of Phoenix on a rotary launcher in the bomb bay you could have had a long range interceptor that could destroy a Badger raid, hack the Shad, and cause the Backfire to evade and go supersonic much earlier. Properly managed it could also have pushed the Flanker range back too.

[ricardian]

27musiicman - HIGH MARS film

[Pontius Navigator]

Ricardian, thank you.

One aspect of that exercise is still extremely sensitive, suffice to say every effort was made to analyse the defences and create an effective ECM and penetration plan. It was determined that we had insufficient jamming power to defeat all the AD radars so all Shrimps were tuned to defeat the height finders.

Interceptors were scrambled and given successfully guidance into the Vulcans' 6 o'clock but of the Vulcans, no sign.

We were accused of all sorts of skulldugery and black magic. Simply however the Vulcans were up to 30k higher than the interceptors who were simply looking in the wrong place.

As an air defence exercise it was really unrealistic and as a bomber exercise very satisfying but again of limited value.

[suzib76]

What a thoroughly enjoyable thread. Almost 12 years since it was started and it took me as many days to read it in full.

[Pontius Navigator]

Does anyone remember a Flt Lt Donald Siviter, nav trained in 1953-4, served on Javelins and Vulcans and retired in 1968?

Interested to know in which sqns he served and possibly Lindholme.

[Barksdale Boy]

I think he was an instructor on Refresher Flight at BCBS in 1967.

[Pontius Navigator]

Thanks, had a feeling I knew him.

Looks like he had returned home, b1931 in Doncaster, retired 1969, took up teaching there.

[zulu56]

thanks gentlemen

Thanks gents for an excellent thread.
the mighty Vulcan has grabbed my imagination & awe since i first saw it in a formation when i was sailing down the river trent , what an awesome sight!
Thanks to you all for an amazing insight to your vulcan careers & thank god you never had to do the deed

[ricardian]

An interesting newspaper article on the Vulcan landing at Rio de Janeiro’s Galeao International Airport during the Falklands "conflict"