Never flew a Vulcan when 'Mass Rapid' starts were allowed - but we still had the 'combustor' facility on most of them in the late 70s. You parked the throttles at the 50% position, selected rapid start and pressed the 4 start buttons in succession. An uncontrolled fuel/air explosion in the engine combustors spun up the engines in no time at all, as soon as they'd started and the gennies were on you started the PFCUs, 8 seconds later they'd all be running. You briefly cycled the throttles back to idle, then selected full power, turned left a few degrees off the ORP and thundered down the runway. 10-15 minutes later you'd be passing 40 000ft, still climbing...
Mark you, we've done crewroom to airborne in 7 minutes in the dear old Vickers Funbus - most of which was in the bus getting to the aeroplane!
Last edited by BEagle; 9th August 2002 at 19:22.