View Full Version : Victor U/C
WIWOC
31st Jul 2018, 12:55
Whilst idling around the Cosford museum's Victor I noticed the bay immediately forward of the nosewheel well was open. Inside was another pair of legs with single wheels apparently each mounted to swing outboard. Whilst I can guess at their purpose I can't find any documentary reference to them or any photos. So, please folks, what are they?
MPN11
31st Jul 2018, 13:54
They had nowhere else to store them? ;)
My sensible thought was something to do with wheel/tyre change, but why carry that weight around all the time? Or jacking up to load Blue Steel!?
NutLoose
31st Jul 2018, 15:53
No idea, all I could think of is the DC10 had an extra bogie for when heavy, I wonder if it was for when it was bombed up? or Spare wheels?
charliegolf
31st Jul 2018, 16:42
Where's TTN when you need him!
CG
Harley Quinn
31st Jul 2018, 18:43
I'm pretty sure that BS on Victors was loaded using a special pit. I'd have thought having a bucket loaded with no weight on ground might be considered a hazard.
The Oberon
31st Jul 2018, 19:00
I'm pretty sure that BS on Victors was loaded using a special pit. I'd have thought having a bucket loaded with no weight on ground might be considered a hazard.
Not a hope, 2 mains and a tail wheel jack and up 39 ins. a penny width at a time. Push in the missile, winch it up, carry out post loads and lower the jacks. There were bomb bay side fairings that could be removed to do the job without jacking but they had dozens of screws and dzus fasteners which took hours to re align and refit, much easier to jack up. Every pan at Wittering had 2 mains and a tail jack ready for use.
XL189
31st Jul 2018, 19:18
That's where spare wheels are stowed when doing a "Lone Ranger" sortie.
Just forward on the belly there is a square hatch about 4 feet square where a fly-away pack (FAP) would be loaded
Pontius Navigator
31st Jul 2018, 19:56
XL189, what was your FAP capacity or just weight of kit?
The Vulcan had to use panniers, a 750lb which could fit between the bomb bay tanks or a 4,000lb pannier, used and misused on many rangers.
Perhaps the strangest when it was manhandled to the Maltese Bacon Factory.
NutLoose
31st Jul 2018, 20:18
So it must have it fitted. Heck I was right, spare wheels... The Learjets had a spare wheel up the tail boom that required a Victorian chimney sweep child to reach it.
cafesolo
31st Jul 2018, 20:57
NutLoose:chimney sweep child.
The Sycamore had something between the engine & rotor which it wasn't given for pilots to know about,but required similar stature.On 1563 Flight Nicosia during autumn 1963 we had on strength a fitter who answered to "Gnome." One night the troops came and woke me; Please Sir,can you come in and disconnect the (whatever) -- Gnome's off sick and no one else can get in. So off I went,crawled into the tubular frame that supports the MRG and disconnected either the rotor shaft or the centrifugal clutch. "Thanks Sir,we'll run you back." Thus demonstrating that not all officers,while decorative are fairly useless!
NutLoose
31st Jul 2018, 21:06
:) we had a young lad from Malaya or similar working with us and he was the only person in the company that could reach it without dismantling the aircraft around it.
H Peacock
31st Jul 2018, 21:41
1563 Flight
Okay, blatant thread drift, but what an amazing 'tour' that was, albeit Belize and not Nicosia!
Tankertrashnav
31st Jul 2018, 23:05
Where's TTN when you need him?
Here, but not going to be any use as I haven't got a flipping clue :confused: Was only ever on Mk 1s anyway, so maybe this just applies to the Mk 2s?
beefix
1st Aug 2018, 07:11
Loading ECM Cans ( if it was a MK2). Victors had to be jacked up to load a BS missile. a real pain at the start of an exercise. More than once it was Jack up- load Missile - Jack down - Missile u/s -Jack up and so it went on.
oldbeefer
1st Aug 2018, 10:45
H Peacok - how true. I was there for 6mths in 1985 and had a great time!
Dan Winterland
2nd Aug 2018, 03:48
The K2s had 2 spare main wheels and two spare nose wheels in a forward bay that used to house some ECM gear in it's bomber days. They were on an axle which was winched up into the bay from a single hoist wire. The jack was kept in the compartment at the back of the fuselage usually known as Annie's hatch. Who Annie was I have no idea. Each main wheel drum had two tyres, so it may have looked like there were four main wheels.
ozleckie
2nd Aug 2018, 06:28
Wasn't that the position of the "Window Dispenser" on the B1 and B1As.
Thanks, Dan Winterland (https://www.pprune.org/members/2724-dan-winterland), all is revealed!! ^
Tankertrashnav
2nd Aug 2018, 09:12
The jack was kept in the compartment at the back of the fuselage usually known as Annie's hatch. Who Annie was I have no idea.
Me neither. This compartment was always known as Annie's hatch as you say, for some reason lost in the mists of time. I'm on a Facebook group which has a lot of Victor crew chiefs and other groundcrew on it. I think I'll ask the question there and see if anybody knows.
Tankertrashnav
2nd Aug 2018, 23:14
Had a go on Facebook about the above and had loads of replies from sundry crew chiefs, riggers, sooties etc, plus a few aircrew. Quite surprised how many had never heard the term, particularly those from the latter days of the K2s, by which time the nickname seems to have fallen into disuse. A lot on the other hand said they always knew it as Annie's hatch.
Only one problem - nobody had a clue who Annie was!
The Oberon
3rd Aug 2018, 05:00
Had a go on Facebook about the above and had loads of replies from sundry crew chiefs, riggers, sooties etc, plus a few aircrew. Quite surprised how many had never heard the term, particularly those from the latter days of the K2s, by which time the nickname seems to have fallen into disuse. A lot on the other hand said they always knew it as Annie's hatch.
Only one problem - nobody had a clue who Annie was!
I worked on B2 / Blue Steel combinations and K2s and have never heard the "Annie's" hatch before this thread, it was always the back hatch amongst ground crew. Whatever it was known as it was infamous, as it contained the Green Satin doppler nav tri-set, and there were more of those changed than anything else, plus the fact that, having got the panel off and the tri-set changed and tested, it was an absolute pig to get the panel back on. It usually required a G.S. screwdriver and a hide faced hammer to get the Dzus fasteners done up. Thank god we got Omega and Carrousel for Corporate.
Pontius Navigator
3rd Aug 2018, 09:31
The Oberon, HP and Avro obviously contacted out the design of the Green Satin bay. The Vulcan was as bad and worse if the hatch was open when the aircraft was refuelled. It had to be opened every trip to pressurise the Tx. Eventually someone has the bright idea of extending the charging points into the undercarriage bay.
ian16th
3rd Aug 2018, 15:29
It seems that I was lucky working on Valiants!
Most of the GS was 'walk up to it' up the back hatch.
The scanner was behind a panel with many screws, in the bomb bay deflector, but we didn't have to take it off very often. Only if the was a scanner snag, very rare, and for a compass swing, to do the alignment.
The jack was kept in the compartment at the back of the fuselage usually known as Annie's hatch
The official stowage for the jack was in a panel on the stbd side, adjacent to the spare wheels.
Dan Winterland
4th Aug 2018, 03:57
The official stowage for the jack was in a panel on the stbd side, adjacent to the spare wheels.
I bow to your superior knowledge. I had a vague memory of getting it out of there once on a land-away, but that was 30 years ago! I do recall accurately that I had to do the jacking in 30 degree heat- as it was my landing!
Ref Annie's Hatch. I've asked a few questions at source. It seems the hatch is to the spare equipment bay, which stored among other things spare drag-chutes and access ladders. One suggestion is a "ditty", far too lewd to be repeated here (and which I only half-heard anyway), the other is that it was known as the "Ancillary Hatch". "Ancillary hatch"...."Annie Hatch"....."Annie's Hatch"? Just a thought.