MB
If memory serves me correctly, in 1974, the Vulcan lifted most of the SAC Giant Voice bombing competition prizes causing major upset in USAF. G.V. was between USAF B52s and RAF Vulcans, the F111 competed as a guest and did better than both competitors.
TEEJ
The Blue Steel footage brought back memories. In addition to the trials launches, there were more. I remember in late '66 early '67 there were enough timex, but serviceable parts to build 4 missiles, 2 were allocated to Wittering and 2 to Scampton, after several carry over trials all 4 were finally launched at Aberporth.
I also chuckled at the footage of loading Blue Steel onto the Victor as, in reality, it was never done like that as it was far too difficult to remove the bomb bay side fairings to allow the missile to be pushed in from the side. What actually happened was that the Victor was jacked up, 37 ins. for a training round and 35 ins. for a "wet one". A Victor Blue Steel squadron had more main and tail jacks than anyone else. If a Mick or Mickey Fynn was called, the first job on arrival on the line was to jack everything up and then wait for the loading teams to come out and carry out the loads.
HTP was indeed volatile and resulted in a couple of strange precautions. Every pan had a plunge bath adjacent to the crewchief's hut, I say plungebath but in reality they were ex MQ enamel baths with castors fitted. If you got HTP on your denims or anything oily, it would spontainiously combust and the idea was that you ran to the side of the pan and jumped in the bath. Great in the summer but not quite as good in winter when they were all frozen over. If HTP leaked onto dirty concrete that would also combust, the answer ?, all pans had a sterile area under the bomb bay and these were maintained by gangs of lineys armed with yard brooms and detergent scrubbing the concrete. Why should Britain tremble ?
PN
The additional offset boxes were devised by individual units. The ones you refer to were the Cyprus wing boxes, huge aluminium things full of trim pots that were indeed set up in the NBS bay. The Scampton version was to repackage the Double Offset internals to allow two set of electronics to fit in a standard size box. The Scampton one became the standard competition fit and was the one rescued from the scrap bin for use on Black Buck.
Last edited by The Oberon; 18th Nov 2013 at 20:27.