Did You Fly The Vulcan?? (Merged)

[tantalite]

I remember hearing about the door seal incident, I was either at Waddo, GSE 5 Hangar or had just gone to Valley to man the dispersal after my fitters course. As I recall SOP was to put a safety raiser under the door before pressurising and applying the wet finger test. The strong suggestion was that this had not been done, Friday night I believe. I know I felt an amazing sense of loss even though I knew neither of them but coming up to 20 myself makes you realise your mortality.

[SierraWhisky]

Ben Mac

I remember a Ben Mac on IX sqn at Cottesmore

I was the nav radar on Polly's crew then Bob Jennings. Went to Cyprus with the sqn then to the OCU in 1970 till I finally escaped at the end of 73. I've just found this thread after Googling for some information. I'm sure there are several more here that I should know - love to hear from anyone to catch up on the latest news.

Sam Weller

[Towlie06]

Thanks for the info guys. Any more from anyone would be much appreciated! Could you tell me a bit more about this disco he ran? cheers

[RJM]

This thread is one of the few places I may be able to confirm the following:

In around April or March 1984 I was staying at Coney Weston near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.

I was at the local postbox when I heard the noise of a jet and looked up to see quite low to the NW what looked to me like a Vulcan heading SE.

I've done some research, and discovered that the last Vulcans went out of service in March 1984, with 50 Squadron at RAF Waddington. This seems to fit with what I saw.

If I'm right, then I'm pleased to have seen the Vulcan in active service.

Can anyone offer any confirmation of what I saw? It was late in the day and at some distance, but the aircraft appeared to be dark grey. I'm wondering whether it could have been an F111 in delta wing mode.

It's been niggling me for years. Unfortunately, I have no photograph. I didn't expect anything interesting to happen while I posted a letter!

[Barksdale Boy]

Waddo Disco

Towlie06

Not much to add. Trevor ran the weekly mess disco in a cheerful manner until his posting to CFS (I think) in late 70/early 71 when it was taken over by Bob Waud.

S/W

Any news of Bob Jennings? I had the great pleasure of flying with him on a number of occasions on 50 Sqn.

[skua]

BB

would that be the same Trevor Jackson who was a QFI on my UAS in 1973-4?

Skua

[VictorPilot]

Vulcan Victor People

Such is the success of this thread, the Victor people suggested starting a Victor thread! Thought I would let you know as many Vulcan peeps also did Victors!! "Were you ever on Victors" is the new thread. Rgds. Bob

[ZH875]

Just returned from the shops and was surprised to see a very familiar shape in the sky, looks like transit between Coningsby and Waddington.

Made my Sunday.

[Tim McLelland]

RJM - I suppose it depends how far away the "Vulcan" was. Given sufficient distance, all Vulcans looked grey, although I doubt if you could mistake a Vulcan for an F-111 at any distance.

Anyway, in short, the 50 Squadron Vulcans were a mixture. Some wore dark green/medium sea grey camouflage with light aircraft grey undersides. Some were matt finished whilst others (former MRR machines) were gloss finished (our old friend XH558 being one of them). Other aircraft wore wrap-around dark green/dark grey camouflage. However they all had a significant amount of white paint on the undersides (apart from XL426), for their tanker role. There were no grey aircraft, but I guess the wrap-round camouflaged aircraft might well look grey from a distance (XL426, XH561, XL445).

I suppose that an F-111 shouldn't be ruled-out considering your location, but I guess it could have been XL426 - overall camouflage, dark, and still active in April 1984. She's at Southend now of course!

Hope this helps.

[EMHawkins]

Vulcan Low IAS

Milt,
Excuse the delay in posting a reply but I have been googling trying to find a book on vulcan that mentions OJ as a present for my father, and your post of 2004 came up!

Ossie Hawkins is my grandfather, if you want to know anymore about the 1964 Vulcan incident I can ask him. I know he has said before the descent he undertook that day was not the 1st time nor was it uncommon...

If anyone knows of a good publication on Vulcan that mentions OJ please let me know!

Thanks

Eleanor

[BEagle]

Hello Eleanor,

Tony Blackman's excellent book Vulcan Test Pilot mentions Ossie Hawkins very briefly on page 117.

I have a spare, brand-new copy of the book; send me a Private Message with your details and it'll be yours if you promise to make a suitable donation to the Vulcan to the Sky campaign.

[Milt]

Eleanor

Can only recall brief details of Ossie's deep stall in a Vulcan and his ejection. Must ask Tony Blackman for the details.

Your grandfather and I were on 14 ETPS course at Farnborough. I went on to Boscombe Down and did much of the early pre service trials on the Mk1 Vulcans. Kept in touch with Ossie and - was it Marie - for a while. Think there were two children, so one must be your father. Could never work out how an NZer came to be called Ossie.

Milt

[alisoncc]

Someone mentioned 230OCU previously.

Was groundcrew on BSqdn 230 OCU at Finningley '63-'66. Part of the flying familiarisation training for new crews was flying "asymetrics", with the engines out on one side and full rudder to compensate whilst attempting to fly in a straight line 20 foot above the runway.

We were putting up crowd barriers for a Battle of Britain display alongside the runway when a crew were doing asymetrics on one occasion. Apparently when the instructor requested full power on the shut-down engines, the seated incumbent chose to shut down the other two engines instead, giving it a somewhat limited ability to stay in the air whilst heading straight for us.

The shutdown engines kicked in just as it passed over us at about ten feet. Three of the group ended up visiting the MO after having been blown some fifty feet through the air. I managed to hang on to the ground, but felt the heat of the exhausts, and it wasn't just warm.

Alison

[Pontius Navigator]

alison, actually shutting down the thrusting engines was the better action. Applying power to all engines resulted in the thrusting engines spooling up immediately followed by a spin and crash.

Bringing the dead engines up and reducing power on the thrusting engines arrested this tendency. Clearly too little power in your case.

[alisoncc]

I think what alerted us to there being something wrong was a sudden silence. I was iccy the group assembling the crash barriers, which we had been at for a few days, and were well used to the noise of low flying Vulc's a matter of yards away. So when it went quiet everyone looked around. Then panic hit.

Alison

[Tankertrashnav]

V-Force Reunion website update

Just a heads up that I have just updated the website V-Force Reunion with some info on signing-in tables for the day. Next week I should be doing a further update with details of how to book for the evening function, so if you are hoping to come to that it is important to check the site out and get your bookings in as soon as I ask for them. NB we are asking for one or two more volunteers to man tables on the day (details on the site). Also please check you are getting the updated version of the site (4 Jan 10) and not the old version (17 Sep 09).

[BUFFBob]

Question about "dispersal" operations

As a 22 year vet of bomber operations "across the pond" I have read your excellent posts with great interest.

One question comes to mind after reading that you were not permitted to fly or even taxi with live weapons aboard.

I understand that you like us had main bases and dispersal bases.

If you were not permitted to fly with weapons on board, how did you get the weapons to your dispersal sites?

Were they pre-positioned at the dispersal sites and then loaded when the alert (QRA?) aircraft arrived on site ?

Also curious about the facilites at the dispersal sites, were there maintenace hangers and crews or was it a bare bones operation.

Thank you for the insight into your operation, it seems things were not much different between our operations.

BB
USAF 1964-1986

[forget]

Welcome BUFF(B-52) Bob, There's some good stuff on your query at

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...sal-query.html

If you were not permitted to fly with weapons on board, how did you get the weapons to your dispersal sites?

During dispersal exercises, code name Mickey Finn, no weapons were ever carried. If the dispersal had been in response to 'politics' then (obviously) they would have been. Never happened.

Also curious about the facilities at the dispersal sites, were there maintenance hangers and crews or was it a bare bones operation.

Varied from bare bones (Pershore comes mind!) to fully operational RAF airfields where a hangar would have been found, if needed.

[Tankertrashnav]

V FORCE REUNION

At the risk of boring you all I have updated the website V-Force Reunion again. Please take a minute to look at this as it gives details on how to book for the evening reception, and this needs to be done asap if you want to be sure of a ticket. Thanks

TTN

[Pontius Navigator]

Originally Posted by BUFFBob

One question comes to mind after reading that you were not permitted to fly or even taxi with live weapons aboard.

We did taxi with live weapons although they did not usually do so with a wet Blue Steel missile.

The free-fall force kept one aircraft per squadron at 15 minutes readiness. Every couple of days, say between 5 hours and 72 hours, there would be a practice alert. It might advance only one readiness from, say 15 to 05 which was engines off cockpit readiness. At other times we might then advance to 02. At this point aircraft not on an operational readiness platform (the fingers off the edge of the runway) had just 3 minutes to start engines and taxy to the take-off point. For a 3 aircraft QRA wing the first aircraft would take up position 1000 feet down the main runway, the second at 500 feet and the 3rd on the threshold.

02 might be held for a few minutes but this was of course burning war fuel reserves. When reverting to 15 the aircraft would taxy around the airfield back to dispersal where they would be refuelled.

Aside from QRA, twice per year, a main force generation would be called. This ws Exercise Mick and all serviceable aircraft would be loaded with live weapons. The exercise would be teminated after declaration of RS 02 and 20 odd aircraft, all live-armed, would taxy down the runway. This was the real spooky exercise - the whole of Bomber Command at 2 minutes readiness, live armed, and live target material issued.

I understand that you like us had main bases and dispersal bases.

If you were not permitted to fly with weapons on board, how did you get the weapons to your dispersal sites?

At Alert Condition 1 the force would have been permitted to disperse with live weapons but with the weapons in a safe state. In order to avoid 'confusion' (such as might happen if you heard that nuclear exchange had commenced) crews were not permitted to switch on any radios - navigation or communication - but to transit EMCON Silent and to land at the dispersal airfield either on a Green lamp OR NOT!

Also curious about the facilites at the dispersal sites, were there maintenace hangers and crews or was it a bare bones operation.

As Forget says, bare bones, but some were better fleshed than others.

At Pershore there was a number 5-room caravans (sheer luxury) with one bunk per cabin like a 1st Class Rail Carriage, but the ablutions were in an adjacent block. At Brawdy the caravans were at the wrong end of the runway which required the reacting crews to drive down the active the wrong way. As Bomber Exercises rated higher than any other RAF activity, except for Transport or Air Defence Ops, it was not unknown for crews to drive down the runway with aircraft on the approach.

At Ballykelly, OTOH, our dispersal was the only 'on-airfield' facility with flush toilets. The resident squadrons had to make do with Elsan Chemical toilets. Ballykelly was also an exception in priority terms. A railway line ran across the main runway so the Bomber Controller had to coordinate exercise alerts with the railway timetable.

much different between our operations.

BB
USAF 1964-1986

Questionable! I had a tour round the QRA Facility at Goose Bay. Ours was donw on the cheap for a reason. No sooner had the V-force and missile force been protected by a 'ring of steel' - the Bloodhound SAM box did the CinC decide that dispersal was the way ahead. He argued that the SAM box would guard against surprise attack but that dispersal was essential. he was told 'no more money' so he said he would do it anyway.

I had a tour round SAC too. Again new money and old. Bomber Command HQ was in the WW2 bunker. Until 1967 we had a 2-line comms telescramble upgraded only then to an 8-line system. None of your world-wide comms.

We toyed with a proper ACP but settled on an emergency only ARelay. We trialled an airborne alert too but shelved that as we could not afford the tanker assets.