I cannot recall that the RAF purchased any civilian VC10's. I flew on the very first RAF VC10 that came from Vickers (BAC) and it was purposefully built for the RAF. The original contract for VC10's did not have any military connection but when that contract 'expired' the RAF tasked the manufacturer to a military requirement...no civilian conversion, to my knowledge, took place.
I did ground training and flight simulator at Cranebank on the BOAC Super VC10 but then had to do the conversion to the RAF model. It was very different.
An aside story was when I was on an RAF team assigned to write the VC10 'landing on water' checklist, or something like that. The team chairman was a seconded USAF pilot (Major Massingham). His previous experience was useful until he introduced the idea of using the fire axe to stab the wing and tie a safety line to assist overwing exodus. I jokingly bet him US$100 to make the attempt. He declined when I reminded him of our visit to Weybridge where we saw them mill the VC10 structure wing out of solid aluminium (he called it aluminum); it was unlike all other aircraft structures we had previously experienced, which use sheet panels rivetted to ribs.
Thanks to Dan Gerous for those memorable pictures....I lost all my logbooks to white ants but must have flown many hours on 808 as an F/E. The only momento I have today is the picture of XV104 presented to me when I left 241 OCU at Brize Norton. XV104 was used primarily for the conversion to VIP role in those days.
So thanks again for those memories.
Last edited by Davita; 14th Jul 2013 at 01:18.