There was a GroupEx in 1967 when alternative aircraft in the stream were diverted from UK to Akrotiri and required to bomb El Adem range outbound. The following day they were ordered to repeat the exercise bombing El Adem before heading home. I wasn't on this exercise but think homebound 6.45 due to headwinds and they were very much on minimums. The distance is about 2400 nm.
My longest sortie was a hilohi, 5.45, which included a primary nav leg about one hour, a 360 mile low level, 1.30, and a high level secondary navex about 2 hrs. We had to make straight in approach to Pershore from high level over the Lake District. We landed just below minimums.
Both these instances were without internal bomb bay fuel.
Another time a crew calculation they could fly home from Chicago but permission was denied.
The much quoted 4000 mile unrefuelled range would have equated to about 8 hrs 40 min and that was in the same ball park as the supersonic Jaguar.
I think the Mk 1 had a much greater range, much lighter airframe, lower powered engines with lower fuel consumption. The very powerful 301 engines were optimized to lift two Skybolt missiles to 50,000 feet plus. They were least suitable for low level missions.
Last edited by Pontius Navigator; 2nd Mar 2018 at 17:41.