Quote: "The are many videos on youtube of previous Victor taxi runs. On all of these that I have seen, the ram air inlets on the upper fuselage in front of the fin are extended. However, on the run when the aircraft got airborne the inlets are retracted. Is there any significance in this?"
No. The scoops are the Ram Air Turbines feeds which on the Victor purely generate emergency elctrical power. They were normall left out for the takeoff and landing as a belt, braces and piece of string backup in the case of a complete generator failure and being able to bring the AAPP (HP speak for APU) on line.
The Victor was essentially all electric, the hydraullics being powered by electric motors rather than Engine Driven Pumps, and the flying controls were electro-hydraullic units. The Mk1 had an enourmous bank of batteries to cater for the complete electric failure scenario, the Mk2 design used the RATs. Unlikely? Well, the theory was that if you had the nuclear weapon you had just dropped detonate behind you, the shockwave would flame out all four engines. The RATs would allow you to keep flying until you got the engines re-lit, the AAPP only being usable below 25,000'.