Did You Fly The Vulcan?? (Merged)
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I heard they experimented (before my time!) with making rear-crew members aircraft captains in the V-Farce. Did this work? If so, why was it discontinued? Can anyone shed any light?
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Captains
Certainly in the during the period of the introduction of the V force this was a carrot being dangled in Nav school. In fact it was also stated there was already 1 nav. captain.
Did the Vulcans have a realistic range capabilty to scramble UK, reach target and return UK?
I know everyone always says that if you went for real you knew you weren't coming back but presumably you would have all done the maths to see if it was feasible - feasible being with the usual flightcrew margins being built in.
On a related issue - and one of a personal nature. What were crew members instructions to immediate family in the event of an evident 'this is the real thing' alert?
I can't imagine how horrific and all pervasive such considerations must have been. Yet I suspect the wives and other base personnel "would have known" pretty quickly after scramble that the cellar was needed if it were for real this time.
For every man on the cutting edge of the Cold War deterrent there was usually a woman and some kids. A fact not overplayed.
Did any wives crack or children suffer psychological trauma? Obviously some did and it might be distressing to raise the issue. One hopes though that the various charities recognise and support these problems... yet I cannot recall ever seeing a cold war survivors fund et al....
Cheers
WWW
I know everyone always says that if you went for real you knew you weren't coming back but presumably you would have all done the maths to see if it was feasible - feasible being with the usual flightcrew margins being built in.
On a related issue - and one of a personal nature. What were crew members instructions to immediate family in the event of an evident 'this is the real thing' alert?
I can't imagine how horrific and all pervasive such considerations must have been. Yet I suspect the wives and other base personnel "would have known" pretty quickly after scramble that the cellar was needed if it were for real this time.
For every man on the cutting edge of the Cold War deterrent there was usually a woman and some kids. A fact not overplayed.
Did any wives crack or children suffer psychological trauma? Obviously some did and it might be distressing to raise the issue. One hopes though that the various charities recognise and support these problems... yet I cannot recall ever seeing a cold war survivors fund et al....
Cheers
WWW
Thread Starter
Try doing some sums, WWW:
Even a max fuel wt Vulcan only carried 88000 lb of fuel. It burned around 10000lb in the first hour, then 7-8000 for the remainder. It did 500-ish KTAS at high level, around 360 at low level. Fairly obviously the route East wouldn't be a straight line, so have a guess at a route to a fairly obvious location in the old Sovietski Soyuz, including a descent to low level to avoid radar. Measure the distance, work out the time and then see how much fuel that leaves you with......
Even a max fuel wt Vulcan only carried 88000 lb of fuel. It burned around 10000lb in the first hour, then 7-8000 for the remainder. It did 500-ish KTAS at high level, around 360 at low level. Fairly obviously the route East wouldn't be a straight line, so have a guess at a route to a fairly obvious location in the old Sovietski Soyuz, including a descent to low level to avoid radar. Measure the distance, work out the time and then see how much fuel that leaves you with......
Yes, Him
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There is quite a lot of old (1950s B.1s) Vulcan footage on the Pathe News site. Complete with corny commentary and cheesey background blare of the time.
Free and worth a visit. Just type Vulcan in the search box, there is a bit of a faff to register but its well worth it.
http://www.britishpathe.com/index.html
Free and worth a visit. Just type Vulcan in the search box, there is a bit of a faff to register but its well worth it.
http://www.britishpathe.com/index.html
Well yes - I did vaguely look at a map the other day with some Vulcan fuel burns to hand and thought it didn't look right. Sobering stuff.
Cheers
WWW
Cheers
WWW
Vulcan Ops
WWW
The display board under the Vulcan in the hangar at Duxford gives a pretty good indication of the situation in the late 60s early 70s. It's not entirely accurate, but it's not bad.
YS
Did the Vulcans have a realistic range capabilty to scramble UK, reach target and return UK?
YS
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For a lot of interesting background to Britain's <GW Bush> Noocular Detergent </GW Bush>, I'd recommend a read of The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War by Peter Henessey.
(Penguin Books; ISBN: 0141008350)
In it, there's list of assumed UK targets from about 1968 in which each V force base and dispersal would be thoroughly dealt with.
Mark.
(Penguin Books; ISBN: 0141008350)
In it, there's list of assumed UK targets from about 1968 in which each V force base and dispersal would be thoroughly dealt with.
Mark.
Thread Starter
Was 270 really the normal max speed with the gear down? Or was that an 'emergency' speed with a lower for routine operation, Mike?
Yes, 10 000 lbs was the normal min landing fuel for a B2 or SR2. You could often squeeze a bit longer out of the ac by putting the sequence timers to manual and running the 3s and 4s to 'White MIs' - preferably with the at least some of the cross-feeds closed!
Well, at least I got the 5.5K right! And I haven't seen a Vulcan Aircrew Manual since 1980! I guess that's the legacy of the excellent training we enjoyed back then; training which the RAF can no longer afford...
Yes, 10 000 lbs was the normal min landing fuel for a B2 or SR2. You could often squeeze a bit longer out of the ac by putting the sequence timers to manual and running the 3s and 4s to 'White MIs' - preferably with the at least some of the cross-feeds closed!
Well, at least I got the 5.5K right! And I haven't seen a Vulcan Aircrew Manual since 1980! I guess that's the legacy of the excellent training we enjoyed back then; training which the RAF can no longer afford...
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V is for Video
Just had a surf through the DD Video web site. There's a lot of video material on the V-Force now available.
http://www.ddvideo.co.uk/
Mark.
http://www.ddvideo.co.uk/
Mark.
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Vulcan fuel consumption
Having just caught up on the last 7 pages a couple of items struck a chord. BEags I think you were being optimistic on the fuel burn/range issue. i remember guzzling more, particularly at high weights. At 325/350 kts on the Oil Burner routes the tanks were certainly emptying at 12-14000lbs per hour. My memory of carrying double drums versus A and E is that the extra 5000lbs only gave about another 20 minutes on the sortie because of the extra burn involved lifting it all up to height.
I echo the frustrations of many that the B2 could not dump fuel. Burning off bored everyone.
Converting from Co to Captain meant learning to fly with the head cocked off to the right instead of to the left. The top handle was never usable due to lack of space between head and canopy, and the only time I flew in the soft inner hat I kept bruising my bonce on the hard bits. Taller people than me managed, but I am not sure how.
Keep going fellahs. As my ex Nav Rad said - the ten west rule still applies even if the official secrets act doesn't seem to any more.
I echo the frustrations of many that the B2 could not dump fuel. Burning off bored everyone.
Converting from Co to Captain meant learning to fly with the head cocked off to the right instead of to the left. The top handle was never usable due to lack of space between head and canopy, and the only time I flew in the soft inner hat I kept bruising my bonce on the hard bits. Taller people than me managed, but I am not sure how.
Keep going fellahs. As my ex Nav Rad said - the ten west rule still applies even if the official secrets act doesn't seem to any more.
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Just found this thread!
Gents
(Assuming that no female ever flew a Vulc)
I have Vulc airframes XH563 and XH537 (Skybolt test bed) Both ended there days at 27 Sqdn at Scampton. I would be interested in any stories about 27 Sdqn and the North Sea, Midway Is etc.
Would be most pleased if any of you flew 537 or 563! My web site needs your stories www.famousvulcans.co.uk
If I am inundated then I will consider producing a book if anyone wants to contribute????
(Assuming that no female ever flew a Vulc)
I have Vulc airframes XH563 and XH537 (Skybolt test bed) Both ended there days at 27 Sqdn at Scampton. I would be interested in any stories about 27 Sdqn and the North Sea, Midway Is etc.
Would be most pleased if any of you flew 537 or 563! My web site needs your stories www.famousvulcans.co.uk
If I am inundated then I will consider producing a book if anyone wants to contribute????
Last edited by PPRuNe Towers; 30th Jan 2004 at 02:16.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Jim Griff,
It were Jeremy Thorpe of the Liberals who wanted to bomb Salisbury.
There followed a delightful sketch in Punch that I remember to this day.
PM to CAS "Please bomb Salisbury"
CAS to PM "Salisbury bombed, please find attached list of recommendations for DFCs"
PM to CAS "Please bomb Salisbury RHODESIA"
There then follwed a long series from CAS as to why we could not bomb Rhodesia.
Wee Wiley Welshman,
Beagle is hedging his bets. Who said we would recover to UK?
Aircraft assigned to Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuanian could make the mission without bombbay tanks and recover to UK. Those destined for Murmansk would recover to northern Norway. Those going further east might recover to southern Norway. My favourite was Kiev. Our recovery was Yesilkoy. Where the hell is that we thought? Out came the maps and there was Turkey!
Families? No time I'm afraid. There were plans to bring those in quarters into the nuclear bomb sheds but that might not have been a particularly good option. Wales was often muted as a good refuge although our use of Brawdy, Llanbedr, Valley, St Athan, Rhoose, Pershore etc rather cocked that one up.
Beagle,
Min landing fuel varied. On the OCU in 64 it was, as you said, 10,000lbs. For operational crews it was 8,000lbs spread across 14 tanks and being burnt by 4 donks.
Operationally the min fuel was 4,000 lb Overhead!
Undercarriage Limiting Speeds
<<--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The undercarriage retracts in 9 to 10 seconds & no difficulty is experienced in achieving a clean aircraft before the undercarriage limiting speed of 270 kts is reached. Whenever possible, the undercarriage should be completely retracted before exceeding 200 kts.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
I remember on incident at Llanbedr. As the aircraft scrambled the captain rolled off the runway, pulled across the hangars and departed asap in case of 'simulated' in bound missiles. His departure was so spirited that the nose wheel remained stuck down and the duty pilot in the tower reported him for dangerous flying. I don't recall what happened to the DP but Dick went on to become a Victor sqn cdr, 100 I think.
It were Jeremy Thorpe of the Liberals who wanted to bomb Salisbury.
There followed a delightful sketch in Punch that I remember to this day.
PM to CAS "Please bomb Salisbury"
CAS to PM "Salisbury bombed, please find attached list of recommendations for DFCs"
PM to CAS "Please bomb Salisbury RHODESIA"
There then follwed a long series from CAS as to why we could not bomb Rhodesia.
Wee Wiley Welshman,
Beagle is hedging his bets. Who said we would recover to UK?
Aircraft assigned to Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuanian could make the mission without bombbay tanks and recover to UK. Those destined for Murmansk would recover to northern Norway. Those going further east might recover to southern Norway. My favourite was Kiev. Our recovery was Yesilkoy. Where the hell is that we thought? Out came the maps and there was Turkey!
Families? No time I'm afraid. There were plans to bring those in quarters into the nuclear bomb sheds but that might not have been a particularly good option. Wales was often muted as a good refuge although our use of Brawdy, Llanbedr, Valley, St Athan, Rhoose, Pershore etc rather cocked that one up.
Beagle,
Min landing fuel varied. On the OCU in 64 it was, as you said, 10,000lbs. For operational crews it was 8,000lbs spread across 14 tanks and being burnt by 4 donks.
Operationally the min fuel was 4,000 lb Overhead!
Undercarriage Limiting Speeds
<<--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The undercarriage retracts in 9 to 10 seconds & no difficulty is experienced in achieving a clean aircraft before the undercarriage limiting speed of 270 kts is reached. Whenever possible, the undercarriage should be completely retracted before exceeding 200 kts.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
I remember on incident at Llanbedr. As the aircraft scrambled the captain rolled off the runway, pulled across the hangars and departed asap in case of 'simulated' in bound missiles. His departure was so spirited that the nose wheel remained stuck down and the duty pilot in the tower reported him for dangerous flying. I don't recall what happened to the DP but Dick went on to become a Victor sqn cdr, 100 I think.
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Ah Yes, 50+Ray. Converting from Co to Capt. I remember a certain doofus who was so nervous on his first left seat ride he hit the wrong start button. Number 4 instead of number 1 or whatever it used to be. Since the crew-chief was standing under the starter exhaust for the engine that was not supposed to be started things got a bit tense. We tested the limits of what an NCO can say to an Officer without getting court-martialed. The extremely humble and embarressed new-hire in the left seat had to make suitable aologies and amends at the end of the sortie. I never did that again.
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12000 lb/hr sounds about right - reducing to 10000 at light weights.
Talking of consumption, I can recall when a captain on his last sqn sortie went for an endurance record. He was stooging around off Ireland on 2 engines [I think] when the Sqn Cdr found out and had him recalled. It didn't do much for the authorisation officer's career prospects.
Talking of consumption, I can recall when a captain on his last sqn sortie went for an endurance record. He was stooging around off Ireland on 2 engines [I think] when the Sqn Cdr found out and had him recalled. It didn't do much for the authorisation officer's career prospects.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Interesting rule of thumb used by Norman Howard, Bomber Command Ops 1, who wrote all the routes.
He told me after I had submitted some fuel planning figures calculated by an incompetent or uncaring copilot. Thereafter I checked every flight plan for arithmetic errors and fuel pigs, one typical one was to 'use' the 7,000lb weight of YS2 as fuel. Yes, true.
The ROT was to take the leg length from departure to Top of Drop, typically 800 miles. Then three times the distance from Top of drop to bottom of climb, say 300 x 3. Then use the distance from BOC to overhead the recovery airfield, say 800. This gave a total distance of, in this case 2,500 miles. Then look at the fuel used for a level flight of 2,500 miles at range cruise which would give a fuel burn of about 55,000lbs therefore fuel o/h recovery would be 17,000lbs.
For my favourite target the figures were 700, 900, 600 which gave a total of 4,000 miles. The putative flight time would be 8 hr 20 min thus we needed the full double drum fit of 88k and would have just 5k left at the end.
While on flight planning for war missions, another thing occurs. The primary mission crew would draw up a flight plan for the start of the war plan on 1 July. The QRA targets however needed four flight plans. We were provided with sets of statistical met so a new flight plan was available for each quarter. If time permitted, the Met Office would provide updated met data but they were never permitted to know the route or area for the forecast! They had to provide met for the whole of western Russia.
Another met curiosity was the Climatological Data Sheet. This was a confidential document provided by JARIC with the climatological data for 100 different regions and each season. By refering to the CDS, the well prepared crew knew whether to pack shorts or mukluks.
Alamo,
One time Vulcan driver and latter Ottawa taxi driver, Harvey Moore got the 0800 slot at Waddo. He did not need the sortie for any stats but the aircraft was serviceable so fly he had to.
He announced that they would be flying for endurance and expected to return about 1500. Oh yeah was the general response. Off Harvey went and air plans assigned the aircraft to the 1500 slot for the next sortie. Come 1300 ops were still taking ops normals when air plans came in "Where was Harvey". Don't know was the reply but according to his flight plan, not far from Bodo. Every few minutes an increasingly anxious planner kept coming in and the prospects for the 1500 launch looked increasingly unlikely. At 1500, true to his word, Harvey checked in, joined the instrument pattern for an approach then into visuals to burn off down to 8,000. 7 hr 15 min. He got roaster by the air planner when he landed which might explain why he became a taxi driver.
He told me after I had submitted some fuel planning figures calculated by an incompetent or uncaring copilot. Thereafter I checked every flight plan for arithmetic errors and fuel pigs, one typical one was to 'use' the 7,000lb weight of YS2 as fuel. Yes, true.
The ROT was to take the leg length from departure to Top of Drop, typically 800 miles. Then three times the distance from Top of drop to bottom of climb, say 300 x 3. Then use the distance from BOC to overhead the recovery airfield, say 800. This gave a total distance of, in this case 2,500 miles. Then look at the fuel used for a level flight of 2,500 miles at range cruise which would give a fuel burn of about 55,000lbs therefore fuel o/h recovery would be 17,000lbs.
For my favourite target the figures were 700, 900, 600 which gave a total of 4,000 miles. The putative flight time would be 8 hr 20 min thus we needed the full double drum fit of 88k and would have just 5k left at the end.
While on flight planning for war missions, another thing occurs. The primary mission crew would draw up a flight plan for the start of the war plan on 1 July. The QRA targets however needed four flight plans. We were provided with sets of statistical met so a new flight plan was available for each quarter. If time permitted, the Met Office would provide updated met data but they were never permitted to know the route or area for the forecast! They had to provide met for the whole of western Russia.
Another met curiosity was the Climatological Data Sheet. This was a confidential document provided by JARIC with the climatological data for 100 different regions and each season. By refering to the CDS, the well prepared crew knew whether to pack shorts or mukluks.
Alamo,
One time Vulcan driver and latter Ottawa taxi driver, Harvey Moore got the 0800 slot at Waddo. He did not need the sortie for any stats but the aircraft was serviceable so fly he had to.
He announced that they would be flying for endurance and expected to return about 1500. Oh yeah was the general response. Off Harvey went and air plans assigned the aircraft to the 1500 slot for the next sortie. Come 1300 ops were still taking ops normals when air plans came in "Where was Harvey". Don't know was the reply but according to his flight plan, not far from Bodo. Every few minutes an increasingly anxious planner kept coming in and the prospects for the 1500 launch looked increasingly unlikely. At 1500, true to his word, Harvey checked in, joined the instrument pattern for an approach then into visuals to burn off down to 8,000. 7 hr 15 min. He got roaster by the air planner when he landed which might explain why he became a taxi driver.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
10 west rule but there were backfires.
In 1964 someone at Coningsby let on to the Canadian nurses on the Goose when the summer ball was being held and gave the immortal words "If you're ever over pop in"
"Cooeee" and an awful lot of aircrew suddenly got food posioning in the sea food bar.
Same happened at Cottesmore in 65 or 66. A couple of nurses pitched up and were given the right cold shoulder. Then a wonderful copilot, Ernie by name, and as innocent as the day is long (in Norway in the summer) said come round to my house you can stay in my caravan. They did but Ernie's wife was VERY suspicious.
Then in 64, at Butterworth, the boss, Bob Tanner, assembled all the crews and told us what we had been doing the previous week. So what we thought, we all know that. Then the bombshell. His WIFE had told him in a letter from home.
It wasn't me guv, honest!
In 1964 someone at Coningsby let on to the Canadian nurses on the Goose when the summer ball was being held and gave the immortal words "If you're ever over pop in"
"Cooeee" and an awful lot of aircrew suddenly got food posioning in the sea food bar.
Same happened at Cottesmore in 65 or 66. A couple of nurses pitched up and were given the right cold shoulder. Then a wonderful copilot, Ernie by name, and as innocent as the day is long (in Norway in the summer) said come round to my house you can stay in my caravan. They did but Ernie's wife was VERY suspicious.
Then in 64, at Butterworth, the boss, Bob Tanner, assembled all the crews and told us what we had been doing the previous week. So what we thought, we all know that. Then the bombshell. His WIFE had told him in a letter from home.
It wasn't me guv, honest!
Thread Starter
Something similar allegedly happened at Waddo in the late '70s/early '80s. Apparently someone had said to the Bellevue Marriott/Crown Plaza bar flies "If ever you're in England...." Supposedly, they then turned up at the Mess during Happy Hour and there were folk bailing out of the windows to escape...!
I hasten to add that this was a story I was told (I'd left the V-force by then) - so it may rank alongside the 'Shackleton making carrier approach' fable!
I hasten to add that this was a story I was told (I'd left the V-force by then) - so it may rank alongside the 'Shackleton making carrier approach' fable!