I may be able to give some details on the Falklands War C130 airbridge. My logbook shows I flew as co-pilot on the primary RV 2 Victor tanker on "Cadbury 2" "Julie" on the 22 May 82. This was the second AAR supported C130 airdrop of supplies to the task force. I also flew on "Cadbury 5" "Olive" on 28 May, "Cadbury 7" on 30 May, "Cadbury 12" "Yvonne" on 7 June, "Cadbury 14" "Zara" on 9 June, "Cadbury 16" on 11 June and "Cadbury 18" "Elaine" on the 13 June. "Cadbury 18" op involved two tanker waves and two C130 which were to airdrop SF. On this occasion we had our only HDU failure and one C130 had to abort back to ASI. These entries seem to give at least 18 AAR supported C130 airdrop missions before the the surrender on 14 June. After that date I logged a further 35 "Cadbury" ops during 3 further deployments to ASI in 1982. The last logged was "Cadbury 190" on 8 Dec 82. The Victor sorties supporting the "Cadbury" missions seem to be either Short (3-4 hours) Primary RV1 (5-6 hours) and Primary RV2 (9-10 hours) involving between 3 and 5 tankers per C130. Between the "Cadbury" trips during the conflict I logged 4 "Tuppence" missions (Nimrod 2P), 2 "BLackbucks" (4 and 6 Vulcan Shrike Ops), a GR3 trail to the Hermes and refuelled the return of the Vulcan north on 14 June. I think the AAR support of the C130 airbridge was possibly the most important role of the Victors during the conflict, notwithstanding the AAR trail of 16 Harriers (SHAR and GR3 via Banjul in the Gambia which were my first Op trips) to ASI, all of which reinforced the Task Force. Sometimes I wonder if people just think the Victors did "Blackbuck 1" and sunbathed the rest of the time!
