When I heard this one the location was Waddo, the occasion was a Summer Ball (mid-70s - not later), and the young ladies were Newfie schoolies.

No doubt, the truth of this will remain as elusive as the coachload of Swedish nymphomaniacs that 'happened to leave this morning'.

Must add that January has brought some great additions to 'Vulcans in Camera'.

http://www.avrovulcan.org.uk/htm/latest.htm

Thanks to the readers of this forum who have submitted images. If I receive many more pictures of 'Vulcan People', I shall have to spin them off onto a new site.

Additions, captions, amendments welcomed.

The Carrier was the Ark, the Shack was out in FEAF. They got the carrier discrete comms and simply called up for a CCA.

The Navy reputedly thought they were going for a landing rather than an overshoot.

About 64 or 65.

BTW, Pontius , what was the "favourite target"? 700 miles to TOD, then 900 miles on at low level. (assuming based in the UK) Obviously in the depths of the Motherland. Even Kiev wouldn't be far enough? Voronezh with a Turkish or Iranian recovery? Nizhni Novgorod? (creative thinking hat) Arkhangelsk?

Hey, guys. Let's not post about the V-Force war plan. It remains classified, even though it no longer exists.

UK War Plan
 

FJJP wrote:

Well some parts of it are already in the public domain. A few years ago there was programme on Ch4 (I think) entitled "The Moscow Criterion" that examined the UK deterrent policy, which was of course based on maintaining a credible capability to destroy Moscow. The program went into some detail about launch and release procedures and of course the target!. But we all covered that one, didn't we?

YS

Steamchicken

It was Kiev, I only roughed out the calculations.

As far as public domain goes, I had permission to give a lecture on the war plans and a fair amount of detail on the war SOP was included. I omitted any mention of Chapter 6 however as that was still classified.

Kiev was one of the targets I used to illustrate deep penetration at low level. The others were Lenningrad, Murmansk, the principal ones on the Baltic littoral, and then the rest spreading towards Big M.

I did not seek, nor was I granted, any clearance to discuss NEAF War Plans. They were just as exciting.

Thanks. I was looking at a very small scale map and guessing the recovery.

Just to keep this memorable thread ticking over, the Vulcan blokes will surely recall this scene. ;)

http://www.canberra.plus.com/pics/Finningley1977.jpg

Scanned from an old copy of Aircraft Illustrated I came across today.

:ok:

Finningley 30 July 1977
 

This has to be Finningley as it was the only class 1 airfield with the ORP on the right.

Aircraft are XM650 [50], XL389 [IX], XM648 [101] and XM594 [44R].

I recall Wadpolling the latter for most of a day.

Occasion was the Queen's Silver Jubilee [Sleepy Fred] celebration.

I also guessed it was Finningley ................ from the title of the hyperlink! ;)

I have a question to do with F3 intercepts against old soviet bombers. Why im asking is that ive been reading through this thread and Beagle talks about how a bomber through use of afterburner and flying at high level an incoming fighter only has a small window for an intercept before he runs out of fuel and has to go home. What im wondering is would an F3 have the same difficulties against a Blackjack as they dont have much go-go juice in afterburner and cant fly at high atlitude?

Vulcans
 

What a lovely site, it takes me back years. Only just found it.

Just a couple of points which have risen from the deepest depths - It was definitely dear Harold (TSR 2) Wilson who threatened to use the V force to bomb Salisbury. I remember the row we had with our squadron boss when we said we would prefer to bomb Cardiff first. ( He was Welsh of course). Nothing wrong with that, it was our way of making a point. Not exactly mutiny, but …

It was, I think, not so sure here, dear Jeremy who said we could easily hit the railway lines from 40 000 feet. What a silly billy he was.

Ponters, I remember Harvey Moore doing something just like this at Cottesmore. He and his crew planned their flight in massive detail from the “Blue Book?” (?) Normally the co-pilot just sucked a couple of figures out of his thumb and made a rough guess at burn-off. I do recall it was a court martial offence (allegedly) to land with less than 8500 lbs. They did a magnificent planning job and found out the Vulcan could fly for quite a long time if you flew for endurance and cruise-climbed etc. So they did it when the opportunity arrived, as you describe. ( I can remember us being pulled out of the bar at Cottesmore to go to Malta for CT one afternoon, “Get the red line up and climbing” was the constant call). But I digress.

Anyway, when they found out Harvey and co were not back on the deck at the normal hour, the whole bunch of wheels were paralytic with fear and rage combined. Some fool at HQBC ordered him to land immediately halfway through the flight, but he pointed out that they were still over the ogwash and might they rather proceed back to base as planned, since they had xxxx hours of fuel left and the seaa looked a bit wet and cold ?

I particularly recall him asking permission for some CT when he pitched up at base after 7 or 8 hours, whatever it was. That was our Harvey all right. Of course the wheels freaked. Many mutters of disciplining him, but he had taken the precaution of filing the route (as required SOP) and his co-pilot (Ed Jarron ???) had plotted the whole trip on the plastic top sheet we use to give to the ops clerk (they never looked at it usually). The AEO had sent standard aireps (Dah dit Dah), but of course, no-one at High Wycombe ever looked at them, so Harvey was in the clear.

Never got past F/O though. I thought he went to Vancouver ?

Ah yes…, talking of memories, does anyone remember the Night of the long Knives at Waddo, was it October 66 ? The whole of No. 1 Group celebrating 50 years or something similar.

The noise when the CAS started to talk …
Scampers arriving smashed to a man... Formidable sight
Thieving the fire hose on the way back ..
Officers trying to cut down the Marquee (Chipperfields ?)

Also, does anyone remember Tony Mitchell deciding to have a quick dekko at Colin Cambell’s crash site at Conniston ? And finding his pic on the front page of the Express next day ? “A slight diversion from track on account of weather , Sir”.

Am I dreaming all this or did it really happen ?

So long ago …

Vulcan memories
 

As to the Waddo show, I was not in BC, but I recall the storygoing round Germany that the 1369s of all those who had been present were marked in the top right-hand corner with (in red ink) 'WAW' - was at Waddington!!

There was a thread on "That" bash about two years ago, I'll see if I can find it.

Ed to add: No luck, search is disabled.

I'll get me coat :(

Then there was the great Waddington food strike. In 1968 the food served up at the Airmen’s Mess was so bad that local pig farmers were refusing their supply of free leftovers. Despite constant complaints over several months, nothing was done until the troops took the matter in hand and organized a food strike. On the day the strike began the cooks stood behind their servery, ready to dole out the customary breakfast of gristle sausages, fried bacon fat and powdered milk and no-one turned up - except for the WRAF’s and RAFP Snoops, as neither group could be trusted to keep their mouths shut. The same happened at each subsequent meal, no-one came to the Mess Hall except to catch the bus out to Line Servicing Squadron. Meanwhile the NAAFI and local hostelries were all doing a roaring trade - being in on the scheme they had plenty of food ready.

The reaction of the authorities was predictable, rather than deal directly with the problem they set the Snoops to work uncovering the ring-leaders. The SIB, being smarter Snoops than anyone ever gave them credit for, sent in undercover men disguised as airmen on posting (easily identified – they weren’t WRAF’s or Snoops yet they ate in the Mess). For several days we were all marched off to the guardroom in rotation, but everyone managed to stick firmly to the story that we weren’t very hungry and didn’t feel like eating. Meanwhile the SIB ‘undercover’ men confirmed the fact that the food was dreadful. For example, they were being served reconstituted dried potato and even rice instead of fresh potatoes due to a supposed potato shortage. In Lincolnshire! In October! I mean, Lincolnshire is Saudi Arabia with potatoes – they stretch out to the horizon as far as the eye can see.

The efforts to uncover the ringleaders stopped and the RAFP transferred their energies to finding out what was happening to the catering funds. It turned out that one of the Caterers, using accomplices in MT, had organized a skimming operation. The ration wagon picked up the food from the regional NAAFI depot and delivered it to local greengrocers and butchers in exchange for rubbish and a share of the profits. The three culprits were court-martialed, convicted and sent off variously to Pentonville or Colchester for brain re-programming. The Airmen’s Mess back at Waddington got a new set of staff and in time developed into the gourmet restaurant it is today, where one must book weeks in advance to get a decent table for luncheon.

Blacksheep. We had a similar thing happen at Cottesmore. The airmen’s mess grub wasn’t particularly bad but in 66/67 I went on a Mickey Finn to Leuchars, where it was sheer gourmet.

By coincidence, when I got back to Cottesmore the Hangar Warrant Officer asked me to join the Mess Committee. My first meeting, later that week, was also attended by a shifty Corporal caterer. Bearing in mind that the V Force messing allowance was the highest in the Air Force I asked why Leuchars grub was so much better than ours. Not getting an answer I suggested that shady business was going on and that some toe-rag was creaming-off the goodies. This was long after I’d rejected a career in the Diplomatic Corps.

At this point our shifty Corporal caterer showed signs of severe distress, which was immediately picked up, without comment, by the WO Chairman.

Lo and behold - two days later I’m walking past the mess and there’s old shifty flanked by two RAF plods. Turns out that the Warrant Officer (impressive chap of the old school) was a student of human nature and shifty’s severe distress had rung an alarm bell. The Plods had then dug up his married quarter back garden and unearthed, amongst other stuff, hundreds of chickens old shifty hadn’t been able to flog on.

A month later the unused upper floor of the mess was opened up and a switched on Corporal caterer, recently returned from Changi, was given carte blanche to open a world class Chinese Restaurant. Anyone remember the Cottesmore Cantonese?
:ok:

A quick follow on from the Cottesmore Cantonese. In the early hours a gang of us would frequently roll up back at Cottesmore after a Brains Trust evening spent in the Blue Cow, South Witham, or the Fox on the A1. Johnny Sharpe was a fairly accomplished rock climber and the vertical brickwork of the airmen’s mess was, to him, a doddle.

We’d sit quietly watching and burping on our several pints of Ruddle’s Best while Johnny ascended to the upper balcony, the door of which was never locked - there no reason to.

Once inside Johnny would creep down to the front door and let us all in, re-securing the door after us.

Quietly into the kitchen where the night shift cooks would see us, for the third time that week, and go ballistic, again. All threats to call the Plods were countered with an explanation of what would happen to the cooks for leaving the mess ‘unsecured’. A truce would be called and the huge joint of roast beef, just out the oven for tomorrow’s lunch, would be requested and produced. My claim was the slightly burnt bits on the edges. Never tasted meat like it since!

Cooks never did find out how we were getting in. The upper floor was still closed then so it never occurred to then that this was our access.

Dronkie,

'fraid the old grey matter is a bit rusty.

Harvey was on 44. I flew a Western Ranger with him in 68. The Jan Mayen trip was in 67, 7hr 15. I have had this confirmed by his nav rad a couple of days ago.

Ed Jarron was at Cottesmore but by 68 he was in Russia as Asst AA.

The Malcolm Campbell incident was Don Dale. He was threatened with court martial for illegal low flying. His real offence was pissing off the brass who hadn't though of the idea and were embarrassed by the praise heaped on 'A lone Vulcan pays a personal tribute'. The court martial would have failed because:

1. The rules required that the aircraft fly within 1.5 nm of track on 95% of occasions. Windermere was off track but less than 5% of the time.

2. He wasn't low flying. He was at 2,000 feet.

BTW, he was on 12 Sqn.

Blacksheep,

Do you remember the old plate wash in the airmen's mess? One to get the plate clean and one to sterelise it. Handy for sick quarters too when you got scalded?

I remember when all the airmen had to return their KFS and plate and get them handed out when they went to eat.

Day 1, all the KFS and plates were dished out.

Day 2, the remaining stocks of KFS were dished out.

Day 3 the airmen's mess had run out.

All the scalies had hung on to the freebees and did not believe the brass when they were told that it would all be washed in the mess for them. After a succession of tannoys, and probably shake downs by Paddy Cowaps men the KFS were returned to the mess.

A Civilian,

If you are still waiting for a reply. the F3 can handle a supersonic high flyer with ease. Just sling an AMRAAM or 2 at it and go for the next one.

Just a reminder:

The old 007-movie "Thunderball" (released 1965) has got some Vulcan-footage. A plane and two nuclear bombs are stolen.
Sean Connery remains the real "Bond - James Bond"! ;)

Best regards

Don Dale
 

Pontius Nav

I presume you mean this Don Dale:

http://www.avrovulcan.org.uk/vulcan_people/27wheels.jpg

No 27 Squadron executives 1975. Sqn Ldr Ron Leighton (Nav Ldr), Sqn Ldr Don Dale (Plt Ldr), Wg Cdr Bobby Robson (OC), Sqn Ldr John Porter (OC A Flt), Sqn Ldr Pete West (AEO Ldr) and Sqn Ldr Ian Calder (Rad Ldr).

I first knew him when he was on the staff at Sleaford Tech.

Alamo

Vulcans in Camera

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.....

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!

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.

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

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!

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! :D

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.

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.

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?;)

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!]

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!:*

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

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?