Victor Mk 1 Performance.
The incident referred to in #26 about a Victor making tyre tracks at Butterworth is true. A 15 Sqn crew were tasked with a heavyweight T/O and were surprised to demolish some approach lights and leave furrows in the grass. As usual it was "Pilot Error" so a Flt Cdr was tasked to show how it should be done. Result - the new lights were demolished again and the furrows reploughed. It was agreed that the ODM was a tad optimistic.
Victor K1/K1A were also seen to kick up rooster tails over the sea after T/O at Gan, as the undercarriage dropped to the free flight position after T/O.
Another example was a 5 aircraft 30 sec stream T/O at AKT. As the formation started to taxi, the windsock, which had been giving a slight easterly component, swung round to give a slight westerly component. The lead crew asked for a change to the westerly runway, which was refused as there was "a VC10 100 miles inbound". After a lot of argy bargy with ATC about T/O with unsafe gaps between Stop and Go speeds the runway change was granted. The lead aircraft took the usual 50 sec ground roll, the No2 several hundred feet more, the No3 even further, and No4 further still. ATC scrambled the Crash Crews to go to the point where No 5 was going to crash. In fact we lifted off on the piano keys and damaged the Safeland Barrier, which was down, with our jet blast as we passed a few feet above it. The reason - each aircraft had heated up the air for the following aircraft.
We landed back a couple of hours later to be met by a very apologetic SATCO and a case of ice cold beer. My captain was the aforementioned Flt Cdr from 15 Sqn.