Veterans “In their own words” .Vulcans

[Timelord]

I have just watched a clip on the RAF twitter account of “ Veterans in their own words” which featured someone (groundcrew I think) talking about their Vulcan experience.

He states that the weapons were American - Did the Vulcan ever carry US weapons?
He states that they were dispersed in “packets” of 3. I only ever saw 4s?
He states that loaded aircraft were “scrambled” and, if an exercise, the scramble cancelled during the take off roll and he And his mates breathed a sigh of relief when they heard the engine noise reduce.

I was a Vulcan Nav Rad from 74-79 and this all sounds very dubious but could any of it have been true prior to that?

[Barksdale Boy]

Total nonsense.
Vulcan nav rad 68-73 and 78-82.

[Yellow Sun]

I have just watched a clip on the RAF twitter account of “ Veterans in their own words” which featured someone (groundcrew I think) talking about their Vulcan experience.

He states that the weapons were American - Did the Vulcan ever carry US weapons?
No, the only V aircraft that utilised a US weapon was the Valiant in its latter days. It had 2 of them.
He states that they were dispersed in “packets” of 3. I only ever saw 4s?
Usually 4 aircraft to a disperal although I suppose that on occasion a lesser number may have been deployed. Some of the early dispersal plans utilised airfields that could only support 2 aircraft.
He states that loaded aircraft were “scrambled” and, if an exercise, the scramble cancelled during the take off roll and he And his mates breathed a sigh of relief when they heard the engine noise reduce.
No for all sorts of reasons.

I was a Vulcan Nav Rad from 74-79 and this all sounds very dubious but could any of it have been true prior to that?

Probably the best ground crew account of the V Force weapons can be found in Tony Blackman’ s V Force Boys, Chapter 15 Nuclear Weapons and QRA.

YS

[Timelord]

Thanks BB and YS. What bothers me about this particular piece of disinformation is that it is being put out on the RAF “official “ X account (and who knows where else) and may, one day, be taken as history.

[ShyTorque]

Some years ago I flew for a private operator who liked to employ ex military people. A new employee turned up claiming to be ex Nimrod aircrew. Although I had no Nimrod experience, a few things I heard from him say about his RAF time didn’t ring quite true and I quickly became suspicious of him. I asked him which Nimrod squadron he’d served on and he correctly gave me a squadron number (there were only two). However, I then asked if he knew a certain pilot and he became very vague and said he couldn’t recall him. Now, I had gone through the CFS QFI course with said Nimrod pilot, who was long term Nimrods and had gone back to that same squadron. He had been their pilot training officer for quite a long time and he would certainly have been well known to any squadron aircrew member. As we were good pals and I’d not been in touch with for a while, so I phoned him and asked if he recognised this new employee’s name. Turned out he wasn’t aircrew at all, he had actually been a member of the officers’ mess staff.

The individual was unceremoniously “let go” not long afterwards, after it was discovered that amongst other misdemeanours he had been running up huge bills for personal telephone calls made to one of his family living halfway round the globe, on a private telephone at the company chairman’s residence! Silly chap.