Further Vulcan Story
Recently finding this thread and seeing the photo attached at message number 310 I thought it might be interesting to add the name of the missing flight commander. He was OC B Flight, John Willis. Having scanned over this Vulcan thread I also thought it might be worth adding both a little more about both double engine failures and a little more to the history of XH558. At one stage I saw on a site containing XH558’s history that in late 1975 into 1976 it was out of commission for a long term repair. On 6 Nov 75 I was part of the crew on the day the damage came about. As I recall, both the captain, John Porter, and myself were undergoing a GSU check. His checking officer was Courtney Guest and mine was Mike Doyle-Davidson. The rest of our crew was Mike Stewart and I believe Peter West but the AEO could have been Ernie Batty.
Being 27 Sqn we were off to do a very long northbound MRR sortie so we also had both drum tanks full in the bomb bay. There we were rolling down Scampton’s runway when the inevitable happened for a GSU check and Courtney announced simulated double engine failure one and two. Sometime very close to this there was a massive bang, lots of expletives and four throttles being firewalled as number three and four wound down. We staggered off the runway, thank the Lord for the Lincoln Edge, climbed to height for the GCA pattern carried out the drills for a double engine failure and some semblance of order returned. However, as we flew downwind Mike Stewart was in the door well ready to open the door and the AEO looking through the periscope was announcing we were on fire. There was no indication of fire from where the pilots sat so rather than open the door and throw our pink bodies at the nose wheel the rear crew stuck with the aircraft. My log book shows 15 mins for this flight but the instrument pattern that day seemed to take a very long time.
Suffice to say the pilots did a great job, we landed overweight, stopped on the runway and 6 Vulcan crew members ran away bravely from the aircraft leaving it to the fire crews. However, when we looked back there was no fire. A few minutes later we were able to approach the aircraft and see what had occurred. The biggest shock was the huge hole blown in the starboard wing. It is very strange to stand underneath an aircraft and look through where the wing upper and lower surfaces should have been. The other sobering thing was looking at HP fuel pipe to the number three engine. As I recall, the number three engine had moved damaging the pipe but all along the exposed area were cuts and nicks where parts of the compressor had damaged it.
So what had happened? The number three engine had managed to find a seagull during the takeoff run which caused it to disintegrate taking the number four engine with it. In so doing it modified the wing. Oh and the fire we experienced downwind. There was lots of twisted metal around the hole in the wing and the anti-collision light was reflecting on it.
All of this did make me think though when we landed at Macrihanish one JMC just ahead of an Atlantique that suffered a multiple seagull strike. I seem to recall in excess of thirty were found in and on the aircraft. As much as I enjoyed my time flying the Vulcan I was quite please to then fly with two Spey engines and a bang seat.