Compared with the Vulcan, the Victor was made far too complicated. Systems worked in a mysterious way on the B1, largely because Fred's Shed tried too hard. The B1 engine intake was a classic. Who nowadays would put engines behind 52 degrees of sweep? You had to roll forward 1,000ft before any serious thrust kicked in.
I liken the Victor to a Rolls Royce - stately facia and gentleman's control column. But nothing could beat it for high level performance. It is interesting how Avro started with a straight delta leading edge and turned it into a crescent. And the Victor 2's performance was easily underestimated. 543 lost a Victor 2 over Warboys because DH, the pilot, ran in at well over max speed while pulling way over max 'g'. Most other aircraft would not have even let him get so much adrift. DH was notorious for having left his brain behind on the Meteor. His rear crew knew he was lethal and they went to the boss to ask not to fly with him, but the boss at the time was a Nav and he didn't feel up to siding against his senior pilot.
Later on, we lost another at Wyton with all my former crew on because the captain tried an asymmetric overshoot too low and discoverd the hard way that two Conways at idle don't deliver max power at anything like the same rate as two 20,000 lb engines already warm.
When I joined my first Victor crew, I brought the average age down to 45. The captain used to wake up on detachment with nightmares about being chased by Me109s over the desert, and the AEO - the loveable 'Zoom' Summerson - had been shot down in Fairey Battles in 1940. Those were the days!