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Did You Fly The Vulcan?? (Merged)

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Did You Fly The Vulcan?? (Merged)

Old 17th Feb 2004, 17:17
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Not sure if this has been highlighted in this thread - if not it makes a good read. Hats off to the crew who happily all seem to have made it out in one piece. http://www.neam.co.uk/wingate.html
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Old 20th Feb 2004, 04:34
  #302 (permalink)  
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Alamo,

The very same. He didn't have a mustache then.

I don't remember Pete West with as much hair either.

I flew with Pete in 64. He introduced me to the niceties of crew cooperation. We had been taught airmanship, that nebulous topic from the 50s but difficult to pin down.

Now it would be known as CRM.

Purple-XD

Nice link, shame they got one of the names wrong. It was Jim Vinales with an S.

Bob Alcock also featured in the less successful Malta crash.
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Old 20th Feb 2004, 18:00
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Vulcan BMk1 NBS and Memories

Vulcan Bombing Accuracy

Hey - you oldish and bold ex Vulcan crew members please answer a question that has been bugging me.

For a while I was Senior Vulcan B1 TP at Boscombe Down. In between weapon carriage and release trials I spent a slice of my life trying to marry the various black boxes and coupling units of the NBS to each other. It was quite a challenge with the Mk 10 auto pilot involved both for bombing and landing approaches. Testing of all conceivable max rate runaway conditions approaching the manoeuvre envelope boundaries kept the adrenalin flowing.

What was the eventual fix to prevent the long period directional phugoid which I discovered one night when on a long haul Navigation Bomb System (NBS) assessment. The stars kept slowly going back and forth with about a 6 degree swing with cockpit instruments all showing steady heading.

Closer examination revealed the source of the problem originated with the compass which had precessional control over the Directional Gyros (DGs) to keep them aligned. Acceleration effects on this alignment system caused the Phugoid lasting about 5 mins per cycle.

This all happened a few months before the first Vulcan Sqdn at Waddington was due for the first time to enter the USAF annual bombing competition. My temporary fix was to have the Sqdn select DGs having negligible natural precession for fitment to the co pilot's panel. Existing switching then permitted use of this DG without compass correction as the heading input for the NBS during critical phases of bomb runs. The Captain retained his DG slaved to the compass. The compromise worked well but was only accepted as temporary.

I recall flying a Vulcan into Waddington to give the competition crews a briefing. The only pilot I remember at Waddington was Sqn Ldr Podge Howard who later, or was it earlier, banged out of that Vulcan at London Airport together with the C in C of Bomber Command. Where is Podge Howard now?

Anyone know the Fix?

And one other question.

At Boscombe we wanted to know the effects of loss of up to 2 Powered Flying Control Units (PFCUs) particularly related to landing approaches. The effects of having two roll units out on one side caused a high degree of cross pitch with roll input and cross roll with pitch input.

Were squadron pilots allowed to shut down PFCUs for training?

Enough technical stuff!

Here is an interesting extract from my memoirs.

One flight with the OC involved yet more weapon release trials from the Vulcan. We had completed some releases into Lyme Bay, a restricted area off southern England when I noticed an aircraft carrier in the area close to where we had been dropping a bomb load. We both thought it most irregular for the carrier to be within our restricted area, so I decided to have a closer look. And what better way to have a close look than to make an approach as if to land on the carrier.

I lowered the undercarriage and approached the deck from astern. As we closed on the carrier we were suddenly aware of smoke and muzzle flashes from some of the carrier's guns. I immediately developed a strong desire to leave the vicinity but not before flying in to about super-structure height. I then ran the engines up to full power as I pulled up into a steep climb away.

It turned out that the carrier was in the area for gun firing training. The OC later had angry words with the Navy and the Captain of the carrier who said we had them worried for a while. Subsequently, we were always carefully briefed on naval ship movements around our dropping area in Lyme Bay.

I flew the Victor occasionally. The feel of this aircraft always gave me an impression of fragility. Control reaction, wing and tail bending combined to cause one to take care with gross manoeuvres. Handley Page had tried hard with cockpit design but it seemed overly complicated compared with the ruggedness of the Vulcan. Perhaps the cohesive structure of the Vulcan made the difference. The Vulcan felt like a fighter having excellent manoeuverability. The Victor, with its lower rates of roll and pitch, was more complex in its manoeuvre characteristics. Now, as an experienced test pilot, I became very aware of these subtle comparisons and pondered about the reasons for such differences.

Then there was the Comet 2C. There could not have been a worse flight control system. It was straight spring feel with exceptionally high breakout forces. Our stipulation that the system be changed to Q (1/2 roe V squared) feel followed which must surely have been appreciated by RAF crews.
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Old 21st Feb 2004, 00:22
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It's a long time ago but . . . my recollection is that only QFIs (maybe only OCU QFIs?) could shut down 2 PFCUs on the same side; squadron pilots could shut down one. Even with 2 shut down the aircraft was quite manageable unless you put in large control movements.
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Old 21st Feb 2004, 00:30
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Autoland approaches were binned, so the annoying MFS compass system directional periodicity wasn't a factor - pilots tended to ignore it. But on RW05 at Scampton you could easily get into a divergent mode if trying to chase the azimuth director pointer with a dose of northerly instability making things worse! The Heading Reference System (basically a Master Reference Gyro pinched from the Lightning) was a much better, well damped system with which the plotter used to steer the beast when away from the circuit - there was a MFS/HRS switch to facilitate this. We got in once on absolute minima with the nice steady headings provided by HRS with the plotter frigging the heading on a GCA. Non-SOP, but it worked very well!

Yes, we used to fly approaches with PFCs deliberately failed. I vaguely remember doing so with 2 out on the same side which made things a bit ponderous!

Thanks for your excellent recollections - I've heard from other sources that, despite its pretty appearance, the Comet had all the traditional vices of control harmony, weird sitck force per g changes at higher TAS and the usual 1950's trim changes with any selection of services!
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Old 21st Feb 2004, 03:12
  #306 (permalink)  
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Beagle,

The HRS/MRGs were the same as on the Blue Steel missile with the advantage that we did not plan to sling them away half way through the sortie.

I thought that they were liberated from the TSR2 programme as indeed was the Decca Doppler 72M.

The guy responsible for the HRS in the Vulcan was a Sqn Ldr Harris at 1 Gp who made the case and won the battle.

The Ligntning may indeed have had them too but for a different purpose. In the Vulcan it was used for heading whereas the Ligntning used it for attitude.

I may well be wrong on this but your input excited a few unused brain cells.
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Old 21st Feb 2004, 22:36
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Vulcan

Having been glued to these pages for some hours, much to my good lady's annoyance. I have been surprised to note that no mention has been made of Automatic Landing in the Vulcan. This system was specifically designed for the V. Force to give them the ability to disperse to any airfield in fog or any limited visibility conditions. The system worked impeccably and was in fact the forerunner of todays automatic landings.

Some years following my retirement from the RAF I visited Greenham for an airshow and was permitted to go into the cockpit of a 50Sqdn Vulcan. When I began to touch the auto land switches etc My Flt Lt Pilot guide astounded me by saying " We dont know what they are for" They had never been used by him or anyone else on the squadron.

What a pity the system was not available to the crew, including Sir Harry Broadhurst when they crashed at London Airport. That story still burns in my memory.

One other thing I would like to mention is that we at BLEU used to carry out 90K approach and landings, on auto's including automatic throttle control. I am sure most ex Vulcan Jocks will give a shudder at that...I know i used to shudder all the way down.
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Old 22nd Feb 2004, 00:23
  #308 (permalink)  
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Well, PN, you're probably right. But I remember being told that the HRS was basically a Lightning MRG tied to the appropriate axis and working in a 'heading only' mode only - which it did very well!

Autoland was indeed a mystery to anyone on 35 in the late '70s. Didn't it require some sort of lead-in cable to be installed at the intended aerodromes of use? I did hear that the reliability of a non-redundant system at very low levels was considered somewhat risky.....
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Old 22nd Feb 2004, 04:23
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Auto ILS

I seem to remember that we did autopilot-coupled ILS approaches down to 200 ft in the 1960s. I don't think it was as effective as a well-flown manual ILS, and the autothrottle function, when fitted and serviceable, was a bit crude. The situation was not helped by the localiser at Waddo (and some other airfields) being offset. I don't think we had the real estate to install a localiser aligned to the runway QDM. Somebody tell me that I am talking rubbish and I may feel obliged to agree!
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Old 22nd Feb 2004, 14:15
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Auto ILS

I flew the 'best' Aircraft in the 70s and remember the Auto ILS worked very well, though it wasn't purely Auto. The system worked well and produced a smooth approach. However, you did have to control speed with power as the Auto throttle function had been disconnected (spares? / didn't work?). I have a feeling, my memory is not that long, that the speed limit was something in the region of 180 Kts - I'll have to go in the loft sometime & dig out the Pilot's Manual.

On a final note, the Aircraft was much more fun flying everything manually. In fact it was my time on the Vulcan that caused my decision not to go to the Airlines; although the 10 West rule etc was fun as was the going to exotic places, those high level transits showed me the utter boredom of hours of Autopilot flight. Some of you will, of course , beg to differ.
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Old 22nd Feb 2004, 15:07
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Heathrow crash

Milt

According to Andrew Brookes: “Crash!”, Ian Allan 1991, it was 1 October 1956 that the RAF’s first operational Vulcan XA897, call sign “Mike Papa Quebec Kilo 11” crashed at Heathrow on a GCA approach.

The C-in-C Sir Harry Broadhurst was in the co-pilot’s seat. The captain Sqn Ldr Donald “Podge” Howard had joined in the ranks, gained a commission after flying training in America, had won a double DFC for low level ground attack during the war. After commanding a Canberra squadron he was seconded to Avro to “grow up with the aircraft”.

In the back sat the navigator Sqn Ldr Edward Eames, AFC. There was no bomb-aimer, as the equipment and radar was not ready yet. Instead on the navigators left sat Flt Lt (Acting Sqn Ldr) James Stroud, a Vulcan pilot with Master Green instrument rating like the captain.

“Tasman” flight was supported on a trip to Australia and New Zealand by three Shackletons carrying ground crew and support equipment. One stayed at Aden. The other two going on to Paya Lebar in Malaya. A Canberra PR7 acted as back up. If the Vulcan went unserviceable, Sir Harry would leap into the PR7 to the next official engagement. Howard and Stroud would bring on the Vulcan later.

The rear trio was completed by signaller Sqn Ldr Albert Gamble. By the entrance door sat Avro tech. service rep. Frederick Bassett.

In lashing rain the aircraft touched down 1.030 yards before the runway, was damaged by a ditch and on climb out became uncontrolable rolling to the right. Only the two with ejection seats got out.

A bitter set of inquiries followed - one of them from the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation defending the GCA system. “Someone” put out James Stroud as second navigator in a press release. Even his death certificate described him as navigator causing much bitterness amongst family and colleagues.

A Boscome scientific study found extra pressure error on the Vulcan close to the ground, that with altimeter friction could be as much as 200 ft. At the “break off “ height (minima today?) of 300 feet they came very close to the ground. (Even without the postulated sudden last second descent.)

There are many more details in Brookes chapter on this tragedy, but his final remark is worth mentioning:

“... the importance of being up to speed on instrument flying skills before the foul weather comes. It also proved that it does not pay to put your latest, largely untried aircraft into your latest, barely opened international airport for vainglorius reasons.”

(The book is out of print but well worth searching for ISBN 0 7110 1965 7)

This became a little long but the Heathrow crash has intrigued me being a GCA controller myself.

Best regards
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Old 22nd Feb 2004, 16:52
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There was indeed a limit of not selecting AP 'Track' plus MFS 'LOC and GP' above 180 KIAS in the Vulcan.

Auto ILS worked OK-ish. But manual trimming and power control was needed and I agree that the hassle wasn't worth it as it didn't give you a lower DH than a manual ILS!

But it gave the GSU trapper something to throw at you on your ICC5 check ride!
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Old 22nd Feb 2004, 18:10
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Auto ILS

BEagle

In my day "Break-off" was 250 ft for manual ILS and PAR, 200 ft for auto ILS. I believe that, when the chips were down, most crews flew manual and swore they picked up the lights at 250ft.
This was when a really good Co was worth his weight in gold. He flew the needles and the captain monitored and took over when he picked up the lights. Real flying in those days!
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Old 22nd Feb 2004, 18:22
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Heathrow Crash

Response to 'normally right blank' - GCA controller.

Milt was a Vulcan TP at Boscombe Down on a 4 hour standby with a spare aircraft and crew ALL of the several weeks that Vulcan XA897 was away on that Australian/ New Zealand trip. Didn't know at the time that the RAAF was interested in acquiring Vulcans. I and crew had been shot full of innoculations for African bugs as we planned to scamper down via Africa with this spare aircraft if any malfunction was to occur with 897 when Down Under. I planned to break some records.

Imagine my disappointment, as an Australian Flt Lt on TP exchange, that the malfunction did not happen until the last few seconds of the mission. Incidently Wg Cdr Clive Saxelby was then my CO. He just happened to be one of those who figured in the "Great Escape" - was it Colditz?

Three factors set up the Heathrow crash if we accept the weather as being right on minimums.

1. Reception committee assembled at Heathrow with resultant pressure on inexperienced (negligible IFR time on Vulcan) and non cohesive/standard crew to make a landing in conditions which would normally have justified a diversion.

2. Approach speed of the Vulcan being below minimum drag speed. This results in increased sink rate if the pilot tries to adjust approach angle with increased alpha and no thrust increase to compensate for the increasing drag with decreasing speed.

3. The Civil GCA controllers were prohibited at the time from giving vertical guidance to aircraft after they had passed through 500 ft AGL.

My test experience on Vulcan discounts PEC and altimeter friction as being amongst all those other possibles that a court of inquiry postulates.

So Podge Howard was really in the 'hot seat' but all would have been well if not for two things. Cessation of vertical guidance and the aircraft already sinking below glide slope.

As they were passing through 500 ft they were advised that they were beginning to sink below the GCA glide slope. At this point vertical guidance ceased although azimuth guidance continued. The sink rate kept increasing without adequate recognition until they emerged from the cloud base. Slamming the throttles to max, (and what wonderful engines they were - idle to max thrust in a tab over 2 seconds) was just too late. The control surfaces dragged across a field of cabbages to be damaged beyond useability and resulted in uncontrollable pitch up.

I didn't know at that time that Civil GCA controllers ceased vertical giudance at 500 ft. I doubt whether Podge Howard knew that either.
Somthing to do with insurance I think. How crazy!! Did that practice continue??

Vulcan and F-111 followed by Mustang rate as my favourite aircraft out of 90 plus. Valiant prototype No 2 (WB215) came close to doing me in when a wing main spar broke. This was after an AUW measured take off using Super Sprite rocket units. Might just open up another thread on broken wings and fatigue.
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Old 22nd Feb 2004, 22:38
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Autoland

AFAIC Remember, only Scampton of the 1 Gp stations had the necessary lead in cable for autoland. This was a bone of contentions at Cottesmore as we were quite high too and frequently down in the reds and ambers. However we NEVER diverted for weather.

Let me qualify that, we never diverted when we were allowed to have a stab at getting in. We had our own inner marker, quite unofficial but otherwise infallible.

Just one mile finals on 23 was the Blue Star filling station. At night its blue star stood out like the proverbial and very similar to the flashing strobes that the USAF use. If we were at 300 ft and on heading then we had to hit the runway in the right place.
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Old 22nd Feb 2004, 23:02
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Another Vulcan-ism was the so-called 'reverse flap effect'. If you were low and pitched aggressively, the elevons (Mk 2 - or elevators on the Mk 1 and 1A) all deflected upwards reducing Cl and down you sank - if further pitch was applied things just got worse! Similarly, overflaring on landing caused sink, checking forward could cause definite ballooning. Somewhere there's a videoclip of the Tu-144 demonstrating both effects and smiting the ground somewhat firmly as a result.

And yes there most certainly was considerable PE effect on the altimeter on an Instrument Approach. I seem to remember having to add 100ft to declared values - using a DH of 300 ft indicated on a PAR or ILS.

Mr J W Phillip lost 3/4 of an acre of his crop of Brussels sprouts, not cabbages when XA897 blasted them flat at London Airport - assessed as being worth £75. Damage to the ditch was assessed as £10 12s 6d....always wondered how they managed such a precise assessment!

With acknowledgement to my first Vulcan captain, Andrew Brookes, for information gleaned from his excellent book 'Crash' - which cost me £16.95 some 10+ years ago! You can see Andy fairly often on TV giving his views as a Defence Expert from the Institute of Strategic Studies. Or as a wide-eyed youngster in a photo on the back of an old Buddy Holly album, eh Andy?
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Old 23rd Feb 2004, 00:53
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I believe Scampton was fitted with a leader cable, although I was never able to confirm this. The leader cable gave the signal to align the ac with the centreline, and the receivers were vertical aerials moulded to the front fuselage immediately behind the radome.

The auto-ILS decision height was 250ft [in-line ILS] or 270ft [off-set ILS]. In my experience, the auto-ILS was pretty accurate - we used to practice them down to 150ft just for the experience [day, VMC]. However, always took a PAR for a reallllly bad weather approach. I only ever used the auto-throttle once [again for the experience]. It wasn't very good, because it tended to split the throttles - you trimmed each engine throttle setting by pressing the relight button, setting the desired throttle position then pressed the relight button to re-engage.

FV - your right, the reason why few airfields had in-line ILS was because of the lack of space at the end of most RAF runways. I was also told once that another reason was that the installation could be expensively damaged by an aircraft over-running the runway into the overshoot area [as happened at Alconbury in the mid 80's when a Canberra did a high speed abort and careered though the ILS installation!]
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Old 23rd Feb 2004, 01:34
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Auto Landing

Many thanks for your replies to my last post. I can only say what a pity, it seem s that none of you experienced true Auto landing due to the fact that you were not adequately equipped. For the record let me point out that Leader Cables were used in the earlier years but due to their obvious disadvantages and improvements made in ILS , they were discontinued and were not necessary for an Auto Landing.
When I speak of Auto Landing system I include Auto Throttle also, because serious automatic touchdown in nil visibility requires this.It must be remembered that I am talking of the necessity of diverting the Vulcan in any visibility conditions during the cold war
I have carried out many full auto landings on the Vulcan including some at 90 Kt approach speed.
All of these have been completely 'Hands off' save for selecting 'Glide path' when a 3 degree pitch down was injected and switching 'Auto land' at about 200 ft.
I am not talking of bringing the a/c down to 150/200 ft but to full touch down including kicking off residual drift.
In my opinion,when an a/c moves through 150/200 ft without sight of the runway and without Auto Land it ceases to be a controlled vehicle, but a missile where the pilot is accepting the fact that if he was in the correct 'window' at those heights and he changes nothing then all will be ok and he will hit the concrete.
I refer to some landings carried out at London Airport in 1962 when the RVR was 45Ft!! True, not in a Vulcan.
I am most gratefull for the information on the lead up to the LAP crash and I must say that having read the official report on this I can only say that, once again the terms of reference for this report made it impossible for a true analysis to be decided and I am sure an Auto Land system would have prevented this unfortunate accident. A few more ejection seats would not have gone amiss either!
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Old 23rd Feb 2004, 02:52
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Padhist

Fascinating stuff. 90 kts on the approach!

My understanding of the reason for the RAF 125kt min IAS for the Vulcan – even at light weight – was poor lateral control in gusts? Can you confirm that?

The Vulcan was the only aeroplane I ever flew where I never felt short of wing. I used to land it slower than 125 when there was not a turb in the sky and on one occasion without the benefit of more than a few knots of wind stopped on 24 at Thurleigh before reaching the centre line of 27. Nothing beats a good wing when it comes to flying! But I still had more than 90 kts – at least until well over that rotten security fence!

JF
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Old 23rd Feb 2004, 05:00
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90kts rings a bell - wasn't that the speed displayed during the original 'Avro descent', practiced by TPs in the early days of the Mk1's?
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