Pontius N
Cannot recall the specs for stores retention on the bomb bay doors of the Vulcan and I was back down under when the incident you mention occurred. But along the same lines is the description of a similar incident with a B6 Canberra from memoirs.
Being the only non British officer on the base, I was somewhat distinctive in my royal blue uniform. I took care to prepare myself as much as possible for every flight as I knew I was under close scrutiny being the first exchange test pilot at Boscombe Down. This paid off, as I quickly generated trust with my supervisors and restraints were soon relaxed. I wanted, of course, to become involved in the trials of the V bombers which were approaching the peak of their flight and systems testing.
I experienced my first abnormal flight on 29 February whilst dropping some live target indicators from a B6 Canberra over the Imber radar directed range not far from Boscombe Down. I was carrying two live target indicators, which were giant flares, and the equivalent in size to about a two thousand pound bomb. Under directions from ground control at Imber, I was directed around a race track pattern at 25,000 ft above a thick cloud cover. Imber used pencil beam radar locked to the aircraft and a pen plotter marked the track on a large map of the range. I was prompted with a speed to fly, the opening of bomb doors, the activation of the master arming switch and the arming of the flares, which were fitted with barometric devices to activate a parachute and in turn ignite the flare at about 2,000 ft.
Release was on a countdown and the first flare dropped away. Just prior to release, the radar operator unlocked the radar from auto-follow and assumed manual control, swinging the beam down along the trajectory of the flare to achieve lock-on to the flare and thus obtain a plot of its entire trajectory. I had felt the slight disturbance to the aircraft on releasing the first flare and was expecting a similar result with the subsequent release of the second.
For the second there was no such feel and almost immediately the navigator reported a hang-up. It was standard procedure to close the weapon bay doors under these circumstances as the range was not very large. After closing the doors and reporting the hang-up, I was vectored into a left turn. As soon as I started the turn I felt a bump and realised that I now had a target indicator sitting precariously on the weapon bay doors. Any wrong move now would be disastrous. Slow down too fast and the flare would slide forward and possibly come on through into the cockpit. Tip the aircraft up a little nose high and it would slip back into the rear fuselage. In either case the gross change in centre of gravity would make the aircraft uncontrollable. We were soon both prepared to eject.
The decisions were mine alone, with Imber keeping me turning to keep the potential disaster within the confines of the range. I felt confident that I could descend to below cloud base to safely drop the flare by opening the doors. Advice from the ground was that the arming of the parachute and fuse barostats were likely to be safe but there was no certainty to this. Eventually, I very carefully started to descend, taking some 15 minutes to get to cloud base at about 3,000 ft. I didn't want to go any lower in case an ejection was required so, again on directions from Imber, I positioned the aircraft over the centre of the range. On opening the doors, Imber picked up the falling flare and we breathed more easily. The flare ignited at 2,000 ft.
I hoped that this sort of thing would not happen too often. As they say, "Flying is not dangerous: crashing is dangerous."