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Old 15th Jun 2002, 05:30
  #9 (permalink)  
BEagle
 
Join Date: May 1999
Location: Quite near 'An aerodrome somewhere in England'
Posts: 26,821
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The Vulcan 'howl' was, pre-Falklands, confined to -200 series engines as all the -300s had the take-off/cruise selector set permanently to cruise and the intake resonance wouldn't happen.

You only got it if you brought up the engines quickly on take-off (we never did 'rolling' take-offs) or if you exceeeded 92?% on a 2-engined asymmetric go-around, which you weren't supposed to do. But most of us did! The noise was often called the 'rutting dinosaur' sound. On a cold, still day you could make the -200 engined Vulcan howl heard across most of Lincolnshire; the ac had so much power that even after a heavyweight take-off the first event would be a simulated DEFATO - and full power certainly wasn't needed for the subsequent go-around! You could set your watch on the ground if you heard a Vulcan taking off - chances were it'd be back to do it's rutting dinosaur howl 15 minutes later!

After the Falklands, all the -300s had been restored to full power and the full power howl was even louder. Allegedly a howling Waddo -300 jet would shake Lincoln cathedral.............

But back to 'blue notes'. I was at Honington in 1976 on my Bucc-struggle when there was a mini-Open Day. 'Wing nut' (aka known as 'VRB' or 'Sex Pest' amongst the politer nicknames) flew F8 'Winston' over from Brawdy and created a very fine Meatbox 'blue note' during the display... To create a good one in the Hunter 6A or 9, you needed to be doing about 450 KIAS, then slowly close the throttle to idle before you reached the aerodrome so that your victims only heard the airframe and gun port 'WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO' as you went past. Ideally choose a cold, calm day and when the circuit was clear as you weren't supposed to join the circuit at such speed............
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