Did You Fly The Vulcan?? (Merged)
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
I remember watching the AEO's cigarette disappear in a trice. Incandscent even as the oxygen bled from his mask 
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Pontius Navigator raises a few interesting IAS numbers for the Vulcans. In my time at BD as senior TP on the Vulcan Mk1 our flight test limits were 415 KIAS and 0.98 IMN. The RAF service release was 380 KIAS and 0.98 IMN. The IMN limit was prescribed as this was the top end of the Auto Mach Trimmer cancelling out pitch down between 0.88 and 0.98. There was not much up elevator remaining at 0.98 depending somewhat on the cg. Cleared the drop of a big blunt shape at 0.98. Did the Squadrons drop any?
The ribs in the nose were subject to deformation at excessive IAS and 475 KIAS would be grossly excessive. Ex RAF Vulcan TP, Tony Blackman, was one of the Avro display pilots at Farnborough from 1958 together with Jimmy Harrison and Roly Falk.
Tony Blackman has recently published a fascinating book entitled "Flight Testing to Win" describing displays of the Vulcan and flight testing at BD and Avro's. No mention of excessive IAS. Tony is currently touring down under and I'll have an opportunity to inquire about the 475. Watch this space.
Tony describes the return of two display Vulcans from Farnborough to Woodford where the most convenient way to have the pressurisation managed was for he and Jimmy Harrison to take their wives along in the right seats. Saved him having to use the cg slide rule to reach the switches.
The ribs in the nose were subject to deformation at excessive IAS and 475 KIAS would be grossly excessive. Ex RAF Vulcan TP, Tony Blackman, was one of the Avro display pilots at Farnborough from 1958 together with Jimmy Harrison and Roly Falk.
Tony Blackman has recently published a fascinating book entitled "Flight Testing to Win" describing displays of the Vulcan and flight testing at BD and Avro's. No mention of excessive IAS. Tony is currently touring down under and I'll have an opportunity to inquire about the 475. Watch this space.
Tony describes the return of two display Vulcans from Farnborough to Woodford where the most convenient way to have the pressurisation managed was for he and Jimmy Harrison to take their wives along in the right seats. Saved him having to use the cg slide rule to reach the switches.
Thread Starter
With the roll-out due in August, it shouldn't be long now until the patience and sacrifice of all those involved on the project to return '558 to the skies will be rewarded.
However, as before funding remans crucial. I hope that those genuinely interested in seeing '558 fly again will be able to help; rather than making comments shrouded in negativity as on another thread on this board, let's see some tangible support from all those who can afford to help.....
It's possible to make e-contributions on the project website; hopefully this will help to secure the necessary additional funding.
The 25th anniversary of the events of 1982 will soon be here; let us not lose the opportunity for future generations to admire the sight and sound of the Vulcan in flight!
However, as before funding remans crucial. I hope that those genuinely interested in seeing '558 fly again will be able to help; rather than making comments shrouded in negativity as on another thread on this board, let's see some tangible support from all those who can afford to help.....
It's possible to make e-contributions on the project website; hopefully this will help to secure the necessary additional funding.
The 25th anniversary of the events of 1982 will soon be here; let us not lose the opportunity for future generations to admire the sight and sound of the Vulcan in flight!
Cunning Artificer
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Same trip we had a fire tech box change. Real p*ss*r as it was a 200 series engine and we had to take the tail pipe cone off then slide the jet pipe out.
BTW, clearing a snag as NFF was declared politically incorrect as it was tantamount to calling the crew bull-sh*tters. (as in imaginary snags during a western ranger) We had to use UTRD* instead.
(*Unable To Reproduce Defect)
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Originally Posted by Blacksheep
A 250 megger on the thermocouple wiring would almost always clear a fire-tech snag.
On this particular trip I did the fire warning test and it didn't work. CC disappears and puts the Megga on it. It worked. We fly to Cyprus with our ranger CC.
Next day we climb in jet to fly to the El Adem range - fire warning light u/s. CC gets bigga megga. It now works and we fly sortie. When we land I checked the fire warning before shut down. It didn't work.
Now the theory that Blacksheep quoted was that an energised circuit would not corrode and fail as long as power was applied. I had just proven that a 28v holding voltage had no chance compared with the 250 megga.
Next day, it didn't work. It was meggaed and worked. We completed our checks but before we moved off I insisted on a further check. It didn't work and that was that!
Subsequently it became SOP to check both pre and post flight.
Cunning Artificer
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Subsequently it became SOP to check both pre and post flight.
That Fire-Tech system was a real crock of sh*t which is why its never appeared on another aircraft since the 'V's. Graviner FFFG worked much better and up-dated versions of firewire systems are still fitted in new aeroplanes today. Quite why Avro put crappy Fire-Tech thermocouples around the engines while using FFFG around the fuel tanks, bomb bay and AAPU I'll never understand.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Blacksheep, Ah, nail and head hit square.
The whole ethos in those days was to strap hours flown onto the SD98 line. Get a crock of **** out of the country and that was one less airframe to worry about back at base and 20 hours 'guaranteed' up the line.
We knew it wasn't the linney's fault but the eng planners who would push that particular airframe knowing that they would get a cheap manpower servicing job done - one CC and 5 gofers (although we couldn't gofre much further than the pan without getting lost
).
That was a point as well, CCs had a few hours piece and quiet on the rangers while we swanned off then usually put in a good few hours af/bf on top of whatever we had to do. The good ones employed the crew skillfully. The not so good probably did far too much themselves.
Originally Posted by Blacksheep
A megger could get you airborne off a "crew-in" and once the engine bays warmed up they would usually stay good until the aircraft returned and we could get in to fix it. On a Ranger - well, you already described what can happen away from base...
We knew it wasn't the linney's fault but the eng planners who would push that particular airframe knowing that they would get a cheap manpower servicing job done - one CC and 5 gofers (although we couldn't gofre much further than the pan without getting lost
).That was a point as well, CCs had a few hours piece and quiet on the rangers while we swanned off then usually put in a good few hours af/bf on top of whatever we had to do. The good ones employed the crew skillfully. The not so good probably did far too much themselves.
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Further Vulcan Story
Recently finding this thread and seeing the photo attached at message number 310 I thought it might be interesting to add the name of the missing flight commander. He was OC B Flight, John Willis. Having scanned over this Vulcan thread I also thought it might be worth adding both a little more about both double engine failures and a little more to the history of XH558. At one stage I saw on a site containing XH558’s history that in late 1975 into 1976 it was out of commission for a long term repair. On 6 Nov 75 I was part of the crew on the day the damage came about. As I recall, both the captain, John Porter, and myself were undergoing a GSU check. His checking officer was Courtney Guest and mine was Mike Doyle-Davidson. The rest of our crew was Mike Stewart and I believe Peter West but the AEO could have been Ernie Batty.
Being 27 Sqn we were off to do a very long northbound MRR sortie so we also had both drum tanks full in the bomb bay. There we were rolling down Scampton’s runway when the inevitable happened for a GSU check and Courtney announced simulated double engine failure one and two. Sometime very close to this there was a massive bang, lots of expletives and four throttles being firewalled as number three and four wound down. We staggered off the runway, thank the Lord for the Lincoln Edge, climbed to height for the GCA pattern carried out the drills for a double engine failure and some semblance of order returned. However, as we flew downwind Mike Stewart was in the door well ready to open the door and the AEO looking through the periscope was announcing we were on fire. There was no indication of fire from where the pilots sat so rather than open the door and throw our pink bodies at the nose wheel the rear crew stuck with the aircraft. My log book shows 15 mins for this flight but the instrument pattern that day seemed to take a very long time.
Suffice to say the pilots did a great job, we landed overweight, stopped on the runway and 6 Vulcan crew members ran away bravely from the aircraft leaving it to the fire crews. However, when we looked back there was no fire. A few minutes later we were able to approach the aircraft and see what had occurred. The biggest shock was the huge hole blown in the starboard wing. It is very strange to stand underneath an aircraft and look through where the wing upper and lower surfaces should have been. The other sobering thing was looking at HP fuel pipe to the number three engine. As I recall, the number three engine had moved damaging the pipe but all along the exposed area were cuts and nicks where parts of the compressor had damaged it.
So what had happened? The number three engine had managed to find a seagull during the takeoff run which caused it to disintegrate taking the number four engine with it. In so doing it modified the wing. Oh and the fire we experienced downwind. There was lots of twisted metal around the hole in the wing and the anti-collision light was reflecting on it.
All of this did make me think though when we landed at Macrihanish one JMC just ahead of an Atlantique that suffered a multiple seagull strike. I seem to recall in excess of thirty were found in and on the aircraft. As much as I enjoyed my time flying the Vulcan I was quite please to then fly with two Spey engines and a bang seat.
Being 27 Sqn we were off to do a very long northbound MRR sortie so we also had both drum tanks full in the bomb bay. There we were rolling down Scampton’s runway when the inevitable happened for a GSU check and Courtney announced simulated double engine failure one and two. Sometime very close to this there was a massive bang, lots of expletives and four throttles being firewalled as number three and four wound down. We staggered off the runway, thank the Lord for the Lincoln Edge, climbed to height for the GCA pattern carried out the drills for a double engine failure and some semblance of order returned. However, as we flew downwind Mike Stewart was in the door well ready to open the door and the AEO looking through the periscope was announcing we were on fire. There was no indication of fire from where the pilots sat so rather than open the door and throw our pink bodies at the nose wheel the rear crew stuck with the aircraft. My log book shows 15 mins for this flight but the instrument pattern that day seemed to take a very long time.
Suffice to say the pilots did a great job, we landed overweight, stopped on the runway and 6 Vulcan crew members ran away bravely from the aircraft leaving it to the fire crews. However, when we looked back there was no fire. A few minutes later we were able to approach the aircraft and see what had occurred. The biggest shock was the huge hole blown in the starboard wing. It is very strange to stand underneath an aircraft and look through where the wing upper and lower surfaces should have been. The other sobering thing was looking at HP fuel pipe to the number three engine. As I recall, the number three engine had moved damaging the pipe but all along the exposed area were cuts and nicks where parts of the compressor had damaged it.
So what had happened? The number three engine had managed to find a seagull during the takeoff run which caused it to disintegrate taking the number four engine with it. In so doing it modified the wing. Oh and the fire we experienced downwind. There was lots of twisted metal around the hole in the wing and the anti-collision light was reflecting on it.
All of this did make me think though when we landed at Macrihanish one JMC just ahead of an Atlantique that suffered a multiple seagull strike. I seem to recall in excess of thirty were found in and on the aircraft. As much as I enjoyed my time flying the Vulcan I was quite please to then fly with two Spey engines and a bang seat.
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AA
I remember well that incident you describe - from the safety of the crewroom it looked quite spectacular, the plume of flame was very like reheat in appearance. Was it a gull or something smaller that caused the big bang? Speculation from the armchairs was something in the order of fieldfare/meadowlark size.
Was John Willis Sqn Cdr at the time, having just taken over from Robson?
I remember well that incident you describe - from the safety of the crewroom it looked quite spectacular, the plume of flame was very like reheat in appearance. Was it a gull or something smaller that caused the big bang? Speculation from the armchairs was something in the order of fieldfare/meadowlark size.
Was John Willis Sqn Cdr at the time, having just taken over from Robson?
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John Willis
John Willis was sqn cdr at the time. Good guy, he went a long way in the air force too. The last time I met him was when he came to visit Goya del Colle when we were running Deny Flight out of there. I believe he was Deputy Chief of Defence Staff. Gosh that must have been eleven years ago.
I remember the bird to be a seagull but it was a long time ago.
I remember the bird to be a seagull but it was a long time ago.
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Had a teacher at junior school in Lincoln who arrived to teach some months after visiting the school to tell us about baling out of the back of a Vulcan.
Can't remember his name, possibly John something.
Mid 70's so could it have been Spilsby?
Can't remember his name, possibly John something.
Mid 70's so could it have been Spilsby?
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Anyone here involved with the Vulcan that was used for the James Bond flying shots?
For the underwater shots, was that a U/S vulcan or a mockup?
For the underwater shots, was that a U/S vulcan or a mockup?
Thread Starter
Why shertainly...
The 'crash landing' in Thunderball was made by a model (look carefully for the wires next time you see the movie); the underwater shots were a well-made movie prop. Incidentally, there was no bulkhead door access through the pressure hull into the bomb bay in the Vulcan - there were 2 navigators and an AEO plus all their black boxes in the way!
The 'crash landing' in Thunderball was made by a model (look carefully for the wires next time you see the movie); the underwater shots were a well-made movie prop. Incidentally, there was no bulkhead door access through the pressure hull into the bomb bay in the Vulcan - there were 2 navigators and an AEO plus all their black boxes in the way!
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Does anyone recall a Vulcan accident where the PIC was a RAAF chap on exchange tour with RAF and the circumstances surrounding it?
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BA,
Was told a story some time back about some selfish command decisions during an inflight emergency and the consequences with regard to how the cockpit crew abandoned the aircraft vice the rear seat crew's options. Could have been just a yarn.
GAGS,
E86
PS Heard about possible re-union later this year?
Was told a story some time back about some selfish command decisions during an inflight emergency and the consequences with regard to how the cockpit crew abandoned the aircraft vice the rear seat crew's options. Could have been just a yarn.
GAGS,
E86
PS Heard about possible re-union later this year?