RR TPs
Former CTP of AVROE, Tony Blackman, has recently published a book called Flight Testing To Win which describes his display flying at Farnborough and many aspects of Vulcan developmental flight testing. The following extract referrs to a Rolls Royce flight which went tragically wrong.
I wish I had known about the nose ribs when I was pushing Vulcans to the limit out of Boscombe Down.
"Flying at Farnborough for the first time had been a marvellous experience for me . However, aerobatics in the Vulcan soon came to an end. We had delivered the very first Vulcan prototype, XV770, to Rolls Royce fitted with the latest Conway engines which were to go in the Victor Mk 2. My great friend from the RAF in Germany, Keith Sturt, was doing most of the flying. One day Keith was flying the aircraft at the Syerston air display and the aircraft broke up and crashed during a straight run past the crowd. There was an amateur movie sequence of the break-up and the experts said that Keith had been exceeding the maximum permitted speed. I was not so sure. We knew that the Rolls Royce crews had been rolling and half looping the aircraft. Keith was not a reckless pilot. What Rolls Royce maintenance engineers did not know was that the engineers at Woodford always used to inspect the Vulcan nose ribs when we were doing aerobatics even though this inspection was not a regular one described and listed in the maintenance manual. The space was very small and Woodford had a special man who could do the job. Damage was often found to the nose ribs which had to be repaired, especially if the pilot had pulled a little too much g. I don't believe that the Rolls Royce engineers had been routinely checking the nose ribs and it is my belief that the aircraft was probably damaged before Keith took-off that day."