V-Force dispersal
In the early 60's I was stationed at Honnington & worked in the Electronics Block. Having done many stints of QRA & Special Safety Team (if a Nuclear weapon crashed, we had to go in & see if there was any spillage of Plutonium & cordon off down wind of the incident & identify the Plutonium with Geiger Counters).
One early morning we had a "Mickey Finn" & all the serviceable Victor B1's were disperssed apart from two which were sat on the end of Honningtons runway.
A fault developed with one of the aircraft's I.F.F. The Squadron Guys couldn't locate the fault which made the aircraft non "Combat Ready". I got a 'phone call in the Electronics Block to say that they were sending a Staff car to take me to the Victor & explained the symtoms of the fault.
When I arrived at the aircraft, the Crew Cheif said that if the balloon goes up when I was inside, I would have to go with them !!
PN informs me that the ASC would have meant it
When I got inside, the cockpit, I looked back to see he was closing the door & taking the ladders away.
I crawled under the desk where the Nav Plotter was sitting & squeezed between the rear bulkhead & the back of the "Black Boxes". I identified the I.F.F. Control Unit & unscrewed the Pye connector plug only to find that two pins had been pushed back (a common fault). I reseated the pins & very gently mated the plug & screwed it back up. The A.E.O. confirmed that it was working correctly, so I got out of there
PDQ.
I have always thought that they had "yellow Sun" loaded up, but
PN says if it was a "Mickey Finn", it could have been inert or concevably "warshot" had been uploaded, the aircraft declared & the weapons downloaded.