Were you ever on Victors (Merged - various)

[VictorPilot]

Gaydon Reunion

Hi Ex-Gaydon people!! Well I was posted to Gaydon on - I think - No 31 Victor course in September 1960. At the recent V Force re-union, I saw quite a few pictures of the aircrew courses of that time, and was suprised to find I could still put names to faces!! I have happy memories of a good social life in the area at that time - for a young newly graduated Pilot Officer. That was a good thing, as after the ground school and simulator phases, I was left supernumary in the groundschool for about 4 months before 4 trips in 7 days and being sent to Cottesmore. I remember several of the A Sqn instructors - where are they now? I believe Des Hall is in Australia? Anyway, I am getting quite nostalgic with all these re-unions and Cold War Jets days. Victor K2 XM 715 ran well - twice - last Sunday in the sunshine - and in her newly sprayed desert camouflage colour.

Last year, I did ask if anyone who ever worked on Victors, and would be prepared to help at Bruntingthorpe (Near Leicester), to contact me. In the event, Not much work was done from Oct onwards as the aircraft was heading for the hangar to be resprayed. Then somehow, I have lost the list of those 5/6 who responded. Now we are now in the Summer maintenance season any help would be greatly appreciated. Experts on fuel gauging, throttle friction, radios, engine fire detector system, and engine setting up would be especially welcome.

All the best to everybody. Bob

[piesupper]

Victor backseaters - who sat where?

This seems as good as place as any to start asking......

Who sat in which seats in the back?

I need to know to start modelling the rear compartment for an Open Source flight simulator that already has a very fine Victor K2 model.

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Later I'm going to be looking for good photos of the rear workspaces but right now I just want to get basic crew positions.

If any of the guys who actually served in the Victor are into flight-simming, we'd be delighted to get your feedback. Our aim at FlightGear has always been to provide the most realistic flight models. To achieve that, nothing beats input from real crew on the machines concerned. We also have Vulcan, Canberra, Buccaneer models as well as nearly 300 other aircraft for you to enjoy.
Thanks :-)

[RFCC]

Victor rear crew were:

Stbd side - Navigator Radar. Monitored the radar and operated the Air to Air refuelling panels

Centre - Nav Plotter. Did the actual navigating of the aircraft

Port - Air Electronics Officer - Controlled the Electrical and Hydraulic systems, also operated the HF radio.

As you probably already know, they all faced backwards.

Hope that helps

[piesupper]

Victor backseaters - who sat where?

Thanks RFCC - now my views can get sensible names instead of Rear 1, 2 and 3. :-)

I did some more focussed googling and found this on youtube - apologies if its been posted before...
YouTube - Victor XL231 Tour 1
and the other vids from Olliemeister.

I now have answers to questions I didn't know I had :-)
I had planned a trip to Elvington as part of this project but with the help of these videos I can postpone it for a while and have more focussed questions when I go.

YouTube - Victor Tanking Sortie Part 1 will also be very useful too.

[forget]

I have to ask - on the first video above why are the FR Pressure and the OAT indicators exactly upside down? It can't be to give an 'Ops Normal Vertical' indication. And while I'm here, what is the JPT Control? Is it to allow Military Power to be used without over-temp warnings? Probably not.

[Tankertrashnav]

Could you ensure that anyone simulating the Nav radar role spends a good portion of their session bent over the rear view periscope (in a 2 hour tanker-tanker training slot that's a lot of bending.) Oh and of course they will have the parachute harness fully done up to increase the discomfort level.

This will ensure that they get disc problems which will last them the rest of their lives.

Well, I assume you want to give a realistic experience!

[RFCC]

Could you ensure that anyone simulating the Nav radar role spends a good portion of their session bent over the rear view periscope (in a 2 hour tanker-tanker training slot that's a lot of bending.) Oh and of course they will have the parachute harness fully done up to increase the discomfort level.

Not to mention the Nav Rad's sore neck after spending 3 hrs out of a 4 hr transit snoozing!

[Tankertrashnav]

Not to mention the Nav Rad's sore neck after spending 3 hrs out of a 4 hr transit snoozing!

Yes all that noisy chat, check lists etc during the climb and descent certainly put paid to getting the full 4 hours in

[piesupper]

Well I'm going to compromise - lets make the periscope view only be available by continually holding down ctrl+shift+P, that should induce some painful wrists. The actual periscope view will be slightly too small to be of any use so there will be some serious eyestrain - I'll add some random jitter as well - will that do ? ;-)

Joking aside, how was the view through the periscope in turbulence - did it appear to make it worse? I have some experience of optical systems where the eye input didn't quite match what the ears and stomach were saying - result was frequent use of the barf-bag. Was this a problem?

Upside down gauges? It's little details like that that make all the difference.

[Tankertrashnav]

At this length of time I dont recall turbulence affecting the periscope view. In any case turbulence of any severity would quickly lead to refuelling being temporarily suspended, as losing a probe in these circumstances was a real possibility. Never once affected by airsickness in nearly 6 years on tankers, but as the only time in my life I ever had to use the paper bag was after over-indulgence in brandy on a British Eagle Britannia trooping flight, I'm probably not the best person to ask!

[piesupper]

Thanks for that TankerTrashNav. I'd like to pick your brains a bit more if I may....

What was the field of view on the periscope? For now we are modeling a two drogue set up.
When you looked through the periscope, could you see both drogues and receiving aircraft or did you have to swivel to each one?
Although I have the Pilots Notes for the BMk1 and 1a, there is no mention of periscopes :-(
and when we do interactive multiplayer AAR we'd like to see the other guy(s)

The "crew chief" seat... Where was that? Did it face forward?

Was the lower bomb aimer position ever used for anything other than duty-free storage?
When did the glazing get eliminated? I presume that would have saved some weight......?

[flipflopman RB199]

And while I'm here, what is the JPT Control? Is it to allow Military Power to be used without over-temp warnings? Probably not.

forget,

Although I cannot give you exact details of the Victor JPT limiting system due to the fact I'm not a Victor man, most aircraft of the time had a similar kind of JPT control system.

The JPT Control system is in place to ensure that the engine does not exceed a maximum set JPT limit at Max Power, in order to maximise the engine life. This can generally be over-ridden by the type of switch you see, so that the engine will then be controlled by the Maximum RPM governor loop, and the engine will be allowed to 'overtemp' and run faster for a short time in order to produce a maximum amount of power, such as a Max AUW take off for example.

Hope this message finds you well


Flipflopman

[forget]

FFM, Very well thank you, and you?

Pleased to see I was (sort of) right(ish) about the JPT switch. Now all that's left is upside down gauges. These baffle me.

[flipflopman RB199]

I'm very well also, thank you!

I'm sorry to say that I have no idea why those gauges are upside down though? The nearest I can think is that the standard refuelling pressure is around 50psi, so the needle would be pointing pretty much straight down under normal refuelling conditions, however, it would also be pointing vertically if it was the correct way up too, so I admit, I'm a little baffled also?!?


Flipflopman

[sooty655]

One other use of the JPT limiter switches is to allow the RPM governors to be checked/reset without interference from the JPT limiters. Otherwise it could only be done in cold weather.

Sooty

[Tankertrashnav]

Piesupper - delighted to have my brains picked (such of them that are left!).

The field of view from the periscope was quite narrow and you could only view one aircraft/hose at a time. With 2 in contact it took several seconds to motor the periscope from one to the other, somewhere between 5 and 10 seconds if memory serves. If you have a look at the V force reunion website V-Force Reunion , click on 'Gallery' and go to the 5th page there are a couple of photos taken through the periscope by my old plotter Don Chadwick, and they will give you a good idea of the field of view.

The 6th seat was used by crew chiefs, and for "trappers" on check rides etc (and on one occasion a rather nice WRAF ATCO in Cyprus ) It was mounted on rails on the a/c centreline, aft of the pilots and forward of the rear crew. It could be mounted facing forward or aft, as the need arose, and was only carried when there was to be a 6th on board, as otherwise it just got in the way!

I was never on bombers and in 6 years on tankers never once heard of anyone going down in the prone bomb-aimer's position in flight. Some may have, but I certainly never did. Wasn't even aware that the glazing was removed but I only actually served on K1/K1a. BTW duty free etc that didnt need to remain pressurised usually went in Annie's hatch at the rear of the aircraft.

Feel free to ask if you need any more info, either on the forum or by PM - glad to help.

Dont know whether I'm speaking out of turn as a non-pilot (unless you count Cessna 172s) but re the JPT limiter, 101.5% power setting was available for max weight takeoffs etc, and this entailed a higher than normal JPT which was only permitted for a limited time. Normal JPT was 625 if memory serves but what temp was reached with the 101.5% setting I'd only be guessing (660?). Standing by to be flamed by someone who actually knows what they are talking about!

[RFCC]

Just to add to TTNav's post. Indeed it was as he said that the seat was only fitted as required on the K1s. However on the K2s it was the reverse, only being removed infrequently to accomodate the astro stool.

Windows were replaced with solid panels on failure, but some were also refitted to accomodate a camera during Op Corporate.

I didn't mention in my earlier post that the nav rad's seat was removed in the mid 80s, with the nav plotter's seat being modified to run on rails so that he could slide into the nav rad's positon when required. The AAR panel was also moved closer to his position.

Regards, ex K2 Crew Chief

[piesupper]

Excellent stuff guys, the amount of wee details I'm picking up from these answers is brilliant.

I found these shots through the periscope, TTNav. It is indeed quite a small field of view, strange, it would seem relatively easy to have made it wider and more usable. I never considered that the periscope would need "motored" round or that it would take so long to do so. I'm sure there was a good reason for this .......

Was the rear compartment normally blacked out with the curtains and portholes screened or only when the radar was in active use? If so did you get much ambient light in there or was most of the illumination from the equipment lighting? This will make a big difference to the model if I have to recreate many different small illumination sources. Its all very well having as many of the dials and switches in the right place but if the lighting is wrong then that work is wasted.

RFCC, do I understand correctly, from mid 80s, it was a 4-man crew ? We can do sliding seats, I'll borrow code from the A380 which has them.

OK I'll bite... Annie's hatch?

The JPT stuff is interesting too and that's a few more lines of code that will be needed to model that aspect correctly.

The existing model that I am extending is a K2, so the sixth seat will be shown by default but will be able to be clicked out. We already have a working model of an RAF sextant (its on our Short Empire model - a Sunderland is planned!) so I'll try to get the guy who wrote that to do something to fit next to the astro-stool. You mentioned this was only used infrequently. I understand Green Satin was very accurate so was the astro stool only used from time to time to maintain astro-navigation skills in case of system failure?

At the moment our available armament options and paint schemes, purport to represent XH648, XH592 and XM717 with a choice of WE177A, WE177B, RedBeard, BlueSteel, BlackBuck1 and Shrike weapon loadouts.
I don't know how accurate any of this is. The paint schemes are white anti-flash, green-grey camo and a desert camo scheme that I am not sure is authentic. We don't have a Blue Steel sub-model yet but that is a future project as is the HDU and a centreline drogue. The Shrikes fire, disappear into the distance and err... that's about it for now. Am I correct in thinking they were never used in anger? As far as I know, the Argentinians never put anything up against the Victor/Vulcan operations.

My own interest is primarily in the tanking operations and given the resources available for XL231, I'd like to add that to the 3 serial numbers above and make sure that it is as accurate as I can make it.

Thanks again for all your help.

[Tankertrashnav]

Answering the questions that I can answer, in order:

Blackout - I tended to put the blanking plate in my window when I was using the H2S for fixing, or RV's on Fishpool, otherwise I left it out. I vaguely remember there was a curtain but I can't ever remember using it. The rear crew area was far less claustrophobic than the Vulcan and I suspect nowhere near as dark.

Annie's hatch I'll leave to RFCC - it was an unpressurised compartment well aft on the port side of the fuselage and gave access to various bits of equipment that crew chiefs understood - all I know is it was handy for putting all your kit in when going overseas!

Dont put too much faith in my info on JPT's - you really need someone like Victor Pilot to put you right on that aspect, and in any case what I said may only have applied to Mk1/1a.

Astro was practised reasonably regularly, but when crossing the Atlantic it was done for real as we had no long range navaids (eg LORAN), were well out of H2S radar range of any land and the Green Satin was unreliable over water. On those occasions the crew chief must have slid his seat well forward to allow access to the periscopic sextant but I just can't picture it?

Regarding the paint schemes, the two Mk 1a's you mention would both have carried white anti-flash and grey green camo in turn, only the K2 would have had the desert camo. Always wished I'd flown in a white B1 -what a super aircraft that looked - by far the prettiest of all the V bombers of any type or mark.

No idea about any of the weapons you mention - the only thing we carried which went bang was the Verey pistol which was occasionally used to facilitate RVs and was great fun to fire!

That covers what I can answer from above.

Roger so far? ...over!

[old fart]

I went down in the bomb aimers position once, on a really booring navigation exercise. (Sorry tanker trash)
I'm not very good with heights and thought that it might help.
I lasted about 10 minutes and then had to get out. I had nightmares about it for months afterwards.
Cheers