Originally Posted by
lasernigel
Valiant must rate as a blunder, not many built and those that were had tail failures.
1. It was the main spar not the tail.
2. It was not Vickers but the MoS that supplied the spar metals in a new and unproven alloy.
Vickers produced an excellent aircraft and also a high-speed low level version that would probably have bested the Vulcan and the Victor except that the RAF had not yet realised it needed a high-speed low level medium bomber.
By 1955, even though the Air Staff had realised that target marking was an outdated tactic and the new bombers would be quite capable of finding their targets in all weathers using radar, the cancellation of the B.2 Pathfinder variant gradually became apparent as a mistake. It was just beginning to be realised that high altitude penetration of Soviet airspace was going to be a lot more dangerous in the future.
YouTube - Vickers Valiant B2
Spot the cuckoo at about 1.24