Vulcan - a reconnaisance aircraft?

[ricardian]

According to this report (http://www.yeahmotor.com/planes/delta-winged-jet-does-an-unbelievable-head-on-wheelie/?utm_source=X1Outbrain&utm_medium=jet+wheelie&utm_term=title&utm_campaign=outbrain+jet+wheelie)the Vulcan XH-558 is "a beautifully designed reconnaissance aircraft"

And there's a photograph of it "doing a wheelie"

[retrosgone]

Well some Vulcans did have a Maritime Radar Reconnaissance role in the latter years. Performed by 27 Sqn if I remember correctly. I certainly remember carrying out Canberra "Lopro" training flights using cueing from a Tin Triangle.

[sandiego89]

And that article also says: "When the Walton family – of Walmart and Sam’s Club fame – picked up one of the last of these Vulcans from the British government, they had to refit it for transport"


So a Vulcan Bizjet!? Perhaps fit the bomb bay with a few recliners, champagne chiller, lav....perhaps a little noise insulation....

[MPN11]

My BIL was a Vulcan pilot on 27 ... he did a lot of 'reconnaissance'.

As to the linked website, they are just ignorant Merican morons who don't deserve the oxygen they're consuming. "Unbelievable head-on wheelie" says it all, really.

Yee-Hah :(

[mopardave]

what on earth are they talking about?:ugh:

[Cazalet33]

http://www.yeahmotor.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Vulcan-Wheelie.jpg

Believe! Believe!

[Bill Macgillivray]

A good picture but, as for the rest of the "blurb", words fail me! (I know, unusual!).

Bill.

[Pontius Navigator]

27 Sqn was dedicated MRR and other reconnaissance sqn but main force also did Instow and Picture sorties (Strike Command and NEAF).

[Tankertrashnav]

I have a few Victor MR sorties in my logbook. Somebody thought it would be a good wheeze to train the tanker force for the MR role. I recall it was stultifyingly boring. We would go to a designated area over the North Sea and pick a ship's response on the radar and work out its MLA (mean line of advance) using the H2S radar and the Navigation Bombing System. Trouble was there were so many errors and slippages built into the Heath Robinson electro-mechanical innards of the NBS that reliable results were all but impossible. I remember calculating that my "ship" was tracking 270 degrees at 10 knots. All well and good until I found out it was a static gas rig!

Fortunately after a few months the whole idea was quietly dropped and we went back to dispensing fuel.

[Cazalet33]

we went back to dispensing fuel

Ah, but could your stickmonkeys do a wheelie on landing? That's the thing.

Head-on is the challenge.

Any Nav can land a wheelbarrow.

[BEagle]

Unfortunately we had MRR as our secondary role on 35 Sqn - it was indeed incredibly boring. Hours and hours of boat-spotting and acting as the Nav Radar's secretary, I loathed it.

The ancient old gits of 27 Sqn had MRR as their primary role, but also conducted other specialised recce work over the Pacific.

When we took over that role on 101 Sqn with the VC10K3, due to the aircraft's much improved range we didn't need to go to Midway - we used Honolulu instead. Which was MUCH more fun!

[farefield]

Ah yes,Beags, "hang loose with the moose".I only managed to get there 6 times!

[Tankertrashnav]

Cazalet, I have no idea if they could do a wheelie on landing - I always had my eyes closed!

[Pontius Navigator]

MRR was much more enjoyable when there was nothing there. We did one an route in coop with two Nimrod. We swept both their patrol areas in 30 minutes, passed two contacts and pressed on to Tengah for the weekend. They enjoyed another 4 hours polluting the Indian Ocean with noise and identified as yachts the two contacts we had found.

[pontifex]

Having just come on board this thread it takes me back to 1963 with Valiants on 543 Sqn. Well, we were a PR/ Recce outfit, and I remember when we started a form of MRR calling it Operation AGAT. They were long boring sorties, at least for the pilots, A different matter for the multi talented guys in the back. We operated so far north that the G4B compass was useless so it was all done on gyro with a 15 minute sequence of sun shots. If the sun was below the horizon they had a device called a twilight computer. This gathered all the light it could find and calculated where the sun would be if you could see it! It was made all the more difficult for them because the search pattern looked like the battlements of a castle. No airways of even civil traffic so we used to "cruise climb" starting at about 28K and ending up at around 50+K after 7plus hours. I think this was where MRR started.

[MPN11]

That does sound like great fun, pontifex.

And welcome to the Thread ... you are clear to join direct downwind, circuit clear ;)

[BEagle]

I see that there's a TripAdvisor comment stating that Moose's has a 'fun atmosphere - not kid friendly'...

Sounds ideal to me!

[Yellow Son]

Cazalet, I have no idea if they could do a wheelie on landing - I always had my eyes closed!

It was possible, but quite hard, on the Victor K1, on account of having 4 Jet Provost engines where the thrust machines should be. That's why we were based at Marham - keep going level and eventually Norfolk will drop slowly away.

[Tinribs]

That's why there is a large hole in the treeline at the end of 06

[Yellow Son]

That's why there is a large hole in the treeline at the end of 06
I don't recall seeing any trees at the end of 06. But then, I usually had my eyes closed. And I've reached the age when memory isn't 100%.


Though I do recall a 'recce' job that the tanker force had for a while that is even less exciting than others described here. We had to fly a rectangular pattern over central northern England, watching out for Nukes going off. If we spotted any, we were supposed to bugle up HQ Strike and tell them, in case they hadn't noticed. In plain English, as I recall, on the assumption that security issues would have been a bit down the priority list by then . . .

[Tankertrashnav]

Having just come on board this thread it takes me back to 1963 with Valiants on 543 Sqn.

Talking about life on 543 in 1963

V-Force Reunion - Gallery (http://www.vforcereunion.co.uk/gallery.html)

(Sorry I cant work out how to select an individual photo, but it's image 5, top right)

Certainly seemed like a great life on 543 - all that foreign travel, and £1,000 a year as well!

Good looking young captains as well ;)

[CoffmanStarter]

TTN, I recognise that young man ... the thing is ... will 'he' recognise himself ;)

[Tankertrashnav]

I hope not - he'll be after my blood if he does!

[MPN11]

Wow ... Seven O-Levels!!
Posh barsteward :)

PS ... I was clearing £600+ after tax as a Ground Branch plt off in 65. Sadly, I drank and smoked most of that.

[Pontius Navigator]

Remember, that £4,000 tax free after 12 years could buy a house in 1965. By 1977 you needed rather more than that. I don't have precise prices but in 1975 we paid £14,600 and sold in 1984 for £41,000.

[NRU74]

Ah, but could your stickmonkeys do a wheelie on landing? That's the thing.

I seem to remember a certain right hand seat stick monkey [on 214] doing a wheelie by landing using the K1A tailwheel - it bent the 'axle'

[Wander00]

First house 1969, semi, 3 beds in Ely - about £4k. 1974 in Northants/Leics border 4 bed house, new £14500, but big discount at builder going bust. Last UK house near Lymington bought £185,000 2001, sold 6 years later £425,000!! House bought 6 years ago in France has gone down rather than up, if we could find a buyer!

[Cazalet33]

having 4 Jet Provost engines where the thrust machines should be. That's why we were based at Marham - keep going level and eventually Norfolk will drop slowly away.

That's why Norfolk and Suffolk and Lincolnshire had so many launchpads. It's an understanding of the form of the Earth, not a fondness of of the earth therein.

(Other than a fondness for the pubs beneath for those who were required to repeat the experience, of course.)

[Tankertrashnav]

Wow ... Seven O-Levels !!

I came in with similar qualifications - at that time you only needed A Levels for Cranwell, as I recall.

Nowadays you need 2 good A levels and I'm guessing a lot of aircrew hopefuls have a degree, which was virtually unheard of then, yet I think we all managed ok

Since the 80s vast sums have been poured into higher education, and that ad makes you wonder how necessary it all was.

I was on a similar salary as a Rockape PO in 1965 MPN11. I remember one of our number in the mess who was a flight lieutenant casually mentioning he was now on £1,000 pa. We were so impressed

[Roly]

Halcyon days indeed, when an E type was £2000; way beyond me on my £49 a month as an APO......

[Pontius Navigator]

Ford Anglia £560 new or second hand Cortina. Two years later able to afford a new Triumph 1300 at £825.

[ian16th]

I was on a similar salary as a Rockape PO in 1965 MPN11. I remember one of our number in the mess who was a flight lieutenant casually mentioning he was now on £1,000 pa. We were so impressed With the BIG pay rise in 1956, when an AC2 was given a 100% increase, I was in the Astra Cinema at Lindholme to hear the Station Master inform us that now, a W.O, in a technical trade, married and living out, was a £1,000/year man.

In the February I finished my Fitters Course having been an SAC on 11/- a day, became a J/T on 14/6, the April pay rise put me on 21/6 and by the August I was a Cpl on 24/6 a day. I forget what the stoppages for tax et al were, but I picked up £7 plus change every week.

As a single 19 year old, life was good.

[ian16th]

Tinribs
Climb what now?
That's why there is a large hole in the treeline at the end of 06
See http://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/358970-valiant-xd869-crash-marham-1959-a.html

The worst day of my service.

[PersonFromPorlock]

Though I do recall a 'recce' job that the tanker force had for a while that is even less exciting than others described here. We had to fly a rectangular pattern over central northern England, watching out for Nukes going off. If we spotted any, we were supposed to bugle up HQ Strike and tell them, in case they hadn't noticed. In plain English, as I recall, on the assumption that security issues would have been a bit down the priority list by then . . . Not bad, but I think we SAC types had a worse one, "Thule monitor" circa 1969. Take a B-52 up to Thule (reading the latest newspaper to the poor bastards at Coral Harbor as we passed by), orbit in Canadian airspace waiting for Thule to go poof!, play Trivia with Thule ground control for hours and probably drive Soviet ELINT mad trying to figure out all the 'secret' messages, fly home. Six hours up, twelve hours on station, and six hours back. The longest one I was on was ~25 hours in the air.

[Exnomad]

I worked on a flight refueling Simulator for the V bombers, we had to build replicars of the cockpit and throttleboxes and visited manufacturers when we still had Handley-Page, Vickers, and De-havilland. Those were the days

[chopper2004]

Unfortunately we had MRR as our secondary role on 35 Sqn - it was indeed incredibly boring. Hours and hours of boat-spotting and acting as the Nav Radar's secretary, I loathed it.

The ancient old gits of 27 Sqn had MRR as their primary role, but also conducted other specialised recce work over the Pacific.

When we took over that role on 101 Sqn with the VC10K3, due to the aircraft's much improved range we didn't need to go to Midway - we used Honolulu instead. Which was MUCH more fun!
@Beagle,

Happen to have a copy of the late George Hall's Superbase 26, Hickam: Hawaiian Guardians in my paws right now, and you did not happen to be inside this particular Flying Banana on this page?

cheers

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g209/longranger/longranger114/IMG_0751_zps5kmbmuzt.jpg

[esscee]

Aah, memories of Hickalulu. 149 in all its glory. Those were the dets.

[jim's brother]

Reminds me of taking XH558 to Hawaii on its last-ever Pacific trip (and... I wasn't an "ancient old git" then, BEagle!) On the way out of Honolulu en-route Midway, the bomb door MI came on during take-off, and I dutifully aborted and popped the brake chute. Air Traffic didn't sound at all happy about the whole situation, probably because we were holding up a large number of shiny white jets full of passengers. The plus side was that we got to spend another day in Honolulu while the Chiefs re-packed the chute - and my penthouse suite in the hotel was excellent (but that's another story!)

Happy days.