GPU power cables
Just discovered this great thread in recent weeks and have been compulsively reading through it. 84 pages...phew!!!
Just jumping in to add my 2 cents worth on the angled/not angled ground power cables. I worked on both B1A's at Waddington and B2's at Finningley, (in reverse order, if you please). If memory serves me right, the angled connectors were on the B1A's and were for the sim-start cables coming from the massive batteries on the sim-start trolley. Although, in theory, they were supposed to pull out by themselves, we always pulled them out manually. My experience of this was on QRA and on Open Day scrambles. On the B2, of course, there were no sim-start cables. The 28vdc power cable connector was located on the side of the crew cabin, somewhere the vicinity of the pitot head, and required a folding servicing ladder to access it for connection and disconnection. It was definitely straight in, at right angles to the a/c centre line, and not angled. Likewise, the 200 vac cable was at the rear of the aircraft, in the vicinity of the power compartment. The connector for this cable (to the best of my recollection) was not angled aft either. On start-up, the 28vdc was removed, once the AEO fired up the static converter(s). The 200 vac was the last to be removed, after the engines had started and the alternators synchronized on line. Admittedly, my B2 experience was on normal starter crew, and never had the dubious pleasure of participating in a B2 scramble. Came close to it though...my first experience of an alert was the "real thing". The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred about 7 weeks after I joined 230 OCU at Finningley, and I spent three or four days on the ORP awaiting Armageddon, but totally peed off because it interfered with my weekend adventures in Doncaster.