Did You Fly The Vulcan?? (Merged)
 

If so, or even if you just want to do something to help get one back into the air, you might be interested to learn that the application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for funding assistance to get XH558 restored to flying status has just passed its first stage. More details here:
http://www.tvoc.co.uk/index2.htm

When she does fly, let's hope that she's displayed sympathetically and gracefully - and without the fatigue consuming wing-rocking nonsense of her last RAF displays which always made me wince.

Vulcan stories please. From drivers or otherwise.

p.s. would be nice to see and hear one flying again.

That's super news BEags. I thought the Heritage Lottery Fund was far too PC to support anything so "nuclear" as the Vulcan. I wholly agree with you about displays. Conservation should be the name of the game - indeed it should only be flown enough to keep a crew in a safe state of practice. I take it there is no simulator left. Anyway the Vulcan simulator was really only a procedures trainer. :)

I know of at least 5 drivers who could still be considered highly skilled and capable.

I'll tick them off one by one as they appear - and they will! :rolleyes:

It is good news. Let us hope and pray that those at the top of the project don't screw this up. Expertise is the name of this particular game and the display sequence should reflect conservation as BEags and others have said.

Still have my Vulcan pilot's handbook somewhere....!!

Oooops! It's 6 drivers - 5 to go! :O

What sterling news. Good luck to all at TVOC. Can't wait to feel the tarmac shake again!!

Sorry to disagree chaps - IMHO it's all a waste of money

Flew it for 8 years, including as display co-pilot for 2 seasons. Good news for the future. Smartman, your opinion is respected, but I totally disagree.

Beags, I've stilll got the manuals, too - now where's that old co-pilot's handbook?!!!

PPrune Pop, guess that's now 7 drivers, 6 to go!

Slightly OT but does anyone here know or remember Chris Lumb? Ex-Vulcan man and I believe one of the last display pilots, last heard of as air attache to Washington. Chris was one of the folks who taught me to fly on UWAS about a million years ago -- a true gent and a superb aviator. If he's still about, I bet he's one of the six!

John

No FJJP - you were one now it's 4! ;)

Actually, I meant the co-pilot's handbook. Mine even has the entries from my last Vulcan flight on 18 Mar 1980 still in it - even the fuel howgozit is still plotted!

XH561, c/s 49X55, ETD 0945Z. $odding 4 1/2 hour MRR boat-spotting trip, fuel was 98% with an 'A' tank fitted but empty and we had an air experience air trafficker along for the trip. Decision speed was 145 KIAS, rotate at 153, 11 minutes later we were up at FL410 chatting with Border Radar. Looks as though we had a t/o delay as t/o is recorded as 1155Z. It seems that there was a right hand sequence timer failure later as there was an imbalance in the 4s and 7s between 1310 and 1355 which was rectified as the 1455 fuel check was OK. Total flight time was 4:30, but the QFI captain was decent enought to let me fly from the LHS and even gave me the landing off a PAR at sunny Scampton.....

Then 2 weeks later I was flying a JP at Leeming doing my pre-Hawk/Phantom course.

Must have words with my mother to see if she can trawl anything up on this.

She was the PA to the top bod at Woodford when the beast was testing.
I fondly remember her telling me about the ground power tests, right outside her office window.

She still has contacts, so I will have words this weekend.

Beags - if you were delayed 2hrs on take-off you must have been entitled to a second pre-flight meal?

Used to make sure we diverted our fighter to Waddo or Scampton cause then we got a post flight meal too!

Happy days - best Vulcan was the tanker - what a stable platform to prod.

Probably a tasking delay from the MRR cell - but undoubtedly we had a full aircrew breakfast at the excellent Scampton feeder!

Yes, I prodded the Vulcan a few times from the F4 and agree it was a nice stable platform. A bit weird at night with those twin underwing anti-coll lights and the MFI wardrobe HDU housing looked hideous. Best tankers were Vulcan and KC-10, then Victor. Worst was the KC-135 with the wretched boom-drogue adaptor which I was launched with on QRA having never had the benefit of a dual trip against it. Teach yourself BDA prodding with 3 tanks and 8 missiles was a silly idea, in my view, but eventually we got the gas - unfortunately the Bears had legged it home before we got anywhere near them.....

Much more fun taking Bear piccies from the '10 - particularly when we showed the Ivans Sam Fox from the Sun calendar from the flight deck windows!

Way things are going, you chaps may need to borrow it back.
:(
As a civilian one would love to see it fly again, one did send them a fiver a few years ago.

ACW599, Officer Lumb was Stn Cdr at Brize around 1989. I believe he retired soon after and went to Eastbourne College as the Bursar. I also hope the Vulcan, should it fly again, is treated with care having been attacked by one, thank you Mr Stannard, at the Toronto air show when we had two Harriers in tow.

Chris Lumb
 

I flew a Captain's Acceptance Check with Chris in XM 605 on 9 Apr 69 on 50 Sqn at Waddo. We went low level at Entry Point 24 (on the old round-Britain LL route) and frightened Wainfleet with 6 x 25 practice bombs. I notice that this was with my own crew with Chris presumably in the left hand seat and myself playing the Co-pilot role. I think it possible that Chris did the upgrade course from Copilot to Captain at Finnigilley and came to 50 without a crew as a supernumerary Captain. I flew night currency checks with Chris on 8 and 29 May 69. I believe the rule used to be that if you had not done a night landing for 28 days, you had to fly with the boss or the squadron QFI. This got very restrictive during the summer months when only one or two of the sorties generated by Eng wing would recover to Waddo between sunset + 1 hour and dawn - 1 hour. So when we were allocated a night-landing sortie, there would be a whole queue of captains waiting out by the runway to jump in and do their circuit and landing. I always thought it damn dangerous to have chaps clambering in and out of a bang- seat in a darkened cockpit downwind to have their quick shake of the stick, particularly when the weather was dodgy and a PAR or ILS had to be flown. And the boss sometimes hadn't had a decent kip for 48 hours. It was not until I had my B-52 ride at Castle in '72 that I met a real 24/7 operation. After a compressed ground school and simulator phase I had one 15 hour ride in the left hand seat of the "Buff". We took off at about noon and returned to the pattern at about 0100 the following morning to do the "circuits and bumps". SAC used to make no distinction between Day and Night flying and if you had to do your first bit of "circuit-bashing" at night, so be it!

Chris flew XM603 with me out to MOONFLOWER at Butterworth via Akrotiri, Muharraq and Gan 2 - 5 June 69 with my own rear crew. I think we swapped seats on each leg. The last leg involved a rendezvous with some RAAF Mirages who formed up in Balbo on us for the arrival at Butterworth. I seem to remember we were down to 2.5 alternators at that point! It was sometimes useful for a detachment commander to have a qualified captain as copilot. Protocol usually demanded a formal leave-taking of CO of the staging post, and it was good to be able to delegate the planning and pre-flight checks to someone competent and reliable. Sometimes I boarded the aircraft with engines running and after-starting checks complete.

When we returned to Waddo on 10 July (still in XM603) but with my own Co-pilot, he remarked when we broke out of the low clag that A Dispersal was empty. A Dispersal (the QRA dispersal) EMPTY??? when we got into Ops we were told that the cold war was over as far as the V-Force was concerned and that Polaris had taken over. At which point I handed over the squadron and was posted.

Chris was a top bloke and obviously on a fast track up the ladder. I believe he was commanding 50 Sqn when it was disbanded in the '80s :ok:

This civilian reader has enjoyed your correspondence immensely, being old enough to remember the chilling undercurrents of those Cold War years. Don't you find people these days have forgotten quite what a threat we all lived under back then? And young people these days probably couldn't even grasp the real possibility for us then of being melted three times over.
It all came back while I was watching a Discovery Channel cable TV prog about the V bombers just yesterday evening. There was some excellent footage of Val, Vic and Vul. There were also intelligent remarks about what the Vulcan crews might have thought about their return-home routes.
I lived near Coningsby in the eighties when a young family man, and went to the Coningsby Air Show in 1984 or1985 (I don't recall exactly which), with my wife and young kids. A Vulcan did a display. It was quite unforgettable. The ground shook noticeably!
(Is the 'driver' out there somewhere?) It must have left a big impression on my then two year old daughter; she has a place at Cranners next year, to fly.

His eyes were open. It was dark. There was no sound. Why had he woken? An eerie sound penetrated his consciousness as the sirens began their mournful wail.

He swung out of his single bed into the cold of the room, dragged on yesterday's clothes and fastened his number 2 jacket. Grabbing his hat he set out for the Ops block a mere 200 yards away. In the glow of sodium lights he could make out the time on his watch - 0405 or O-dark hundred. Dawn was still some hours away.

Only 5 minutes since the sirens had begun their call to duty but the Ops block was bustling with life. No conversation, just action. Straight to the Ops desk, grabbed the call out book and then to a free telephone. "Oakham 1234 please" The operator put him straight through; no question "Is this a service call?"

"Yes?" "12 Sqn - callout" "OK"

He pressed the recall and immediately asked "Stamford 3412" Like a well oiled team he had his own operator in the exchange waiting for his next call. There was no plan; it just happened.
............................................................ ........................................

And so the war would start.

40 years ago tonight not on topic but!!!!
 

Cottesmore Victor QRA dispersal.

Been out of boys at Cosford 2 weeks, posted to Cottesmore Air Radar bay and found my self on Weekend QRA groundcrew, Never been near a real servicable aircraft let alown one armed with a real nuke!!!!

0230am Been asleep about 2 hours, and the tanoy clicks on and you can hear background chat and mains hum.

We start to get up and dressed--------------------------------------------- I dont know what to do!!!
THIS IS THE BOMBER CONTROLLER FOR COTTESMORE OPERASTIONS STBY STBY STBY (thats what i remengber might not be those words)


EXERCISE EDEN, EXERCISE EDEN, EXERCISE EDEN
Readyness state 02 02 02 (or something like that )

Tha claxton fires off 3 times and we start to run out to our Victor B!A. The Snoop pulls away the security barriers checks our passes and we strat to clean up the jet, power on remove the blanks.

The crew arrive in a black car and straight into the aircraft.

WE go straight for a start and the crew chief hits the sim start buttons one after another. I am standing under the intake ready to pull out the sim start cables and AC/DC cables. The engine noise fron the HOUCHIN??? (power generator ) sags under the load as the 4 jets start up together.

I watch the intake Vortex playing 2 feet infront of my head!!!!


The crew chief signals to me to pull the cables they are 4inches in Dia, another lad helps me. the other jet on the other dispersal has also started.
The other lad grabs me and pulls me behind the houchin, the jet winds up and starts to taxi out of the dispersal very fast!!!!!!!
they line up and go to full power and start to roll---------sh.........t------------------there going -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
then throttle down , fast taxi along the runway and back around the peri track to the dispersal.

The crew shut down and we replug the jet back in, the crew stay in the cocpit and redo scramble checks.
WE do an AF/BF inspections sign the seven hundred top up the fuel and stand down about 0500. everybody heads for the craper for a d..p,

That was 40years ago tonight whats more I was still a BE as I was under 17 1/2 years old. Whats even worse i can still smell that room the stale tea, fags and damp sweatyscared bodies

It scared tha pants off me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they were real big nukes in those days, those jets were 30 seconds from being airborn in undar 10minuts from the initial hooter.

It was not a game..

Happy Christmas to all ex V force Aircrew and Groudcrew

Wasn't confined to the RAF either. In the late 1960s, both the then Royal Naval Air Stations Brawdy and Lossiemouth had what was locally called a "V" Bomber Dispersal. From time to time, these were occupied with Vulcans who came and went on a priority whim from a metallic "This is the Bomber Controller" voice on repeater in ATC and Ops. It didn’t pay to be around when the Vulcans “scrambled” – being on short finals was no reason to be given landing priority over a departing military 4 jet!

Not being a C***, I wasn't totally familiar with the reasons why Vulcans had to be parked over water pits. I was later told that it was because of the volatile nature of the Blue Steel propellant.

Vulcan diversions/scrambles, coupled with the MDA role at Lossie led for exciting times during the Cold War. Diversions of QRA Lightnings, F105s, F104s, F4s and F102s were an almost everyday occurrence. From time to time, we'd see Intel photographs of 'Bear' bomb aimers waving at the intercept aircraft.

In a later incarnation, I was privy to B52 ops out of RAAF Darwin. These guys gave new meaning to ‘long sorties’ with stories of up to 35 hour trips being flown on a regular basis in the 1970s.

At the time, I was totally committed to the righteousness of our cause. Now, older, wiser and with a broader experience of life, I look back on those time with a mixture of emotions. Was it really fun and patriotism or was it something more sinister?

On a recent UK trip, my wife and I visited the regional seat of government bunker at Hack Green - http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/h/hack_green/

For those who might not know, Hack Green is one of several sites around the UK from which Britain would have been governed after a nuclear attack. The place boasts every last degree of creature comfort, even down to the pastel decor shades designed, as our guide told us, by an industrial psychologist to minimise the stress on the occupants - most of whom were to have been public servants and politicians. It would have doubtless been of great comfort to the occupants to view a purple wall when those without the gate were dealing with the aftermath of a nuclear attack.

During the visit, we also saw documents purporting to be a plan to deal with radiation sickness casualties. If these documents are accurate, then the general plot would have been to round up those suffering from radiation sickness, intern them in places to be hastily constructed and then order surviving units of HM Forces to shoot them. Even in those days, it was apparently accepted that the public hospital system would not be able to cope with such a large influx of patients who would probably die anyway. As one who had been a junior officer during the Cold War, and who might have been called upon to command others to fire upon our fellow, albeit radiated countrymen and women, I felt quite ill at ease.

And just to rub salt, we were shown documents that purported to be copies of plans to re-introduce tax collections six months after a nuclear attack!

30 odd years ago, I was seized with the glamour, excitement and belief that, in the company of my comrades, I was doing something vital for my country. Now, I've come to the view that, irrespective of nationality and culture, politicians and bureaucrats will always protect their posteriors at the expense of those who actually do the work that produces the taxes that allows the pollies and public servants to live off the fat of the land.

If you were on leave on the V-force and there was a sudden call-out, you were normally exempt under day-to-day peacetime concessions. But you had to supply a contact number whenever you were away from home overnight, no matter what.

Occasionally the exercise directing staff might check the system; however, even they were human enough not to ring someone on leave in the early hours. I was on leave from my Vulcan sqn once when there was a Taceval Part One call-out - and the DS demanded later in the morning that a test call was made. This was long before the days of having normal civvie phone access at RAF station crewrooms....so the duty warmonger on the desk went through the tedious process of convincing some deaf old bat at a military exchange to dial my number....Ring ring, ring, ring......"Teesside Grain Company" came the reply. "Is that (my number)?" said the duty warmonger, "Nay lad, it's foo*kin' TEESSIDE GRAIN COMPANY!" came the response! Fortunately the DS saw the funny side (I was on holiday in Menorca at the time!).........

Then it happened again! This time I was staying with my lady friend; they didn't have a phone but the old biddy who owned the flat would take messages for them. But when the Sqn callout bloke rang at o-dark-hundred and asked to speak to Flt Lt (BEagle), she grandly replied "Young man, I do not accept telephone calls from strangers in the middle of the night. Kindly call back tomorrow" - and put the phone down on him! I then left in the morning as planned and didn't get any message until I got home that evening at 1900. By which time the exercise had long since finished!

I'm surprised that we didn't have more accidents caused by people racing in to work from their beds in the early hours for a Mineval, possibly only a couple of hours after a few drinks in the pub.....

VC10 scrambles were much more civilised. Phone went at o-dark-thirty, get out of bed, throw on flying kit, drive to Ops, get brief, drive to sqn, grab kit, bus to jet, get in, crank up and roar off - took about 40 minutes including a 20 minute drive. At least you could then have a wash and shave in the aircraft loo on the way to RV with the QRA Phantom - and breakfast, of course as we had a freezer full of frozen QRA meals in the crewroom. But just occasionally it went wrong; we were hanging about at 30 minutes readiness and rang Ops yet again to find out what was going on. They in turn rang the Master Controller who said "OK - you can let them go".... Ops rang back, "OK chaps, you can stack now". Half way through having a cup of tea the hooter went and the Tannoy yelled for us to scramble..... It seems that "Let them go" was supposed to have meant "Scramble"! Which is why we always had a 20 minute cuppa before stacking from being On State in case They had cocked up again or changed Their mind.

On the Phantom, Q scrambles weren't pleasant. You had to be airborne within 10 minutes, which included getting up, throwing on the rest of your kit - g-pants, goon suit, boots then head under the cold tap to wake yourself up if there was time, then on with LSJ and bone dome, up the steps, start the left engine, strap in, start the right, gennies on when the nav was happy with the INS, wave chocks, out of Q shed, down the access, hang a left onto the RW, then full A/B and away..... After I'd finished my F4 time I was holding as an assistant Ops Off one day when an alert tone came over our system. Grabbed phone, flash to Neatishead, "You've got 30 secs to tell us WTF is going on because Q1 and 2 are scrambling" I yelled, "Standby, standby" replied the Master Controller...meanwhile over the telebrief came "QI on....Q2 also....Sitrep please!", "Maintain cockpit readiness and standby 30 sec", I replied, "WELL NEATISHEAD...WHAT GIVES!!!". "It's OK, false alarm, stand them down, time blah I authenticate blah blah...". "Q1 and 2, revert to Readiness ** ", I ordered, "...and I'll ring you as soon as I find out what caused the flap"...... I soon found out - it seems that some idiot had decided to do a periodic test of the external telescramble line continuity without checking first - and his test tone was identical to the tones used for the most urgent no-notice scramble alarm....equivalent to what the civvies called the Four Minute Warning!

There must be hundreds of such anecdotes around, but Cold War times were certainly interesting right up until the collapse of the Eastern bloc.

Hmmm, indeed, the cold war, I remember that, leastwise we knew how we were on with Ivan, lot to be said for having a proper enemy.
:rolleyes:

Argus - Before people wonder how a Blue Streak was fitted under a Vulcan, I will correct it to BLUE STEEL. Blue Streak was our attempt at an IRBM/ICBM.

The Mighty Vulcan would still be a crowd puller at any air display.

The local pub also had a "Bomber Box" until a few years ago, IIRC it was removed about 1995. Other rural locations were police stations and Post offices but as the village has neither, it was fitted in the pub

Apart from the tick-tock tone when the volume was turned up, about twice a year the landlord had to note down a codeword from the Mysteron type voice and post this word off to someplace. He would also turn up the volume periodically, listen to the tone and announce to baffled non-locals "Ah, they've not nuked High Wycombe yet then ".


The pub also had a hand-cranked air raid siren, which the landlord used with gusto to announce bonfire night fireworks.

I recal they were still testing the Air Raid sirens round here right up to he seventies I think, there was a one on top of a thing like a telegraph pole not far from whereI lived.
Happy days. :rolleyes:

Gainsey

My local used to have the very same kit (and landlord by the sound of things) We found the sien at 4.30am one morning in the middle of an all night lock-in. Oops :E

Gainsey
A pub I used to know very well in W Sx, the Chequers at Rowhook used to have the same box fitted. As it was also the local warning station it was equipped with a hand cranked air raid alarm. Guess how many times that alarm came out on a summers night after a few beers :ok:
Regards
FEBA

What was the return-home plan? (if it ain't secret or profanity laden)

There wasn't one.

That's rather what I thought. I suppose your namesake will be in much the same position!

At one time the Victor Tanker fleet was used as an airborne relay station for the Bomber Force to give extra range for 'go words'. Sitting quietly munching on our sarnies at 40000ft up came the voice of an Irish lass with the word "c**t", we can't repeat that we said, "say again", "c**t" she said, disaster all round. Turned out the word was "currant" but in her clipped Irish brogue thats how it came out.

There's a couple of ex vulcan pilots who now fly out of Gloucester, they've got some interesting stories!
One of my Air Traffic instructors used to be a Vulcan navigator or something as well!
You ex Vulcan boys seem to be everywhere!!!!!

Yes - but don't forget that even in the late 70s there were 4 Vulcan sqns of 10 x 5 man crews each at Waddo and 2 x strike and 1 x boat-spotting sqn at Scampton, plus the Vulcan OCU. That made around 350 Vulcan aircrew at any one time, plus loads of others who had already done their V-bomber time....

And we had around 70 Vulcans to play with! But nowadays the RAF can't even afford to buy its own basic training aircraft and has to rent the Tupperware Trainer (Das Teutor) from some civvie firm.......

Why the hell did we bother? Succesive governments have hacked away at the RAF's capability with barely a murmur from Their Airships.... Bar one - and he was 'invited to resign', I gather.

Gainsey, the 'Bomber Box' you referred to in pubs, post offices, police stations, etc, wasn't the V-Force Bomber Box. The V Bomber Box was sited only in Service establishments, like ATC, Ops rooms and so on. The clicking box was something to do with the Civil Defence and Royal Observer Corps Nets - I'm not sure how they worked, though.

Blue Steel was a whacky bit of kit. I well remember QRA with the Missile - the co-pilot and AEO had to take High Test Peroxide (HTP) readings inside the aircraft every so often overnight. It was a real pain. The water pits referred to were very necessary - they were sited round the country as part of a network of emergency off-load airfields. If the HTP temperature rose towards critical levels in flight, the crew declared an appropriate emergency and landed at the nearest airfield to pump the HTP out of the missile, where the fire section would dilute it with copious quantities of water. That was a well-orchestrated drill involving the whole crew. It was called 'Red Hot Water' and struck fear into the heart of the average Stn Cdr. The worst that could have happened was the missile jettisoned on the ground and subsequently exploding. It would have made a very large mess of the surrounding area - hence the fact that the offload pits were sited in remote parts of the airfield, where the blast would cause least damage.

HTP was leathal stuff - dirty clothing would catch fire if splashed with HTP. All dispersals had heated plungebaths next to them, covered with a layer of table tennis balls to reduce the heat losses. The idea was that if anyone got splashed with HTP they would plunge into the bath fully clothed, where the water would dilute to safe state the HTP. Seen it done several times - hilarious, unless it's you in the middle of winter!

FJJP - The Bomber Box to which you refer was indeed, according to an elderly close relation (ex ROC), to do with Civ Defence. The clicking was a confidence tone. The box (either radio or via land-line) was to announce that your bit of this sceptic isle had been/was about to be turned into heat and light by Ivanski.

ZH875

I stand corrected; Blue Steel it was. I'm afraid it's the tyranny of distance - and old men forget!

FJJP
Thanks for the correction, I just called it the Bomber Box as it was vaguely similar to the ones I'd seen/heard in the RAF.

As a further memory, the landlord's game plan, in the event of a real alarm was to retire to the cellar with a buxom barmaid and a flagon of brandy.:)

orionsbelt,

I'll use your story if i may.

Steamchicken,

Oh there was a get home plan. In the Bomber Command War SOP 1st Edition, we were given the phone numbers of all the embassys and air attaches, supposedly to get instructions for the next mission. Only now, on the AWRE site do we know that we had less than one bomb per aircraft. Enough to cover the war plans but no spares.

Under the 2nd edition of the SOP they were more realistic and left out the phone numbers. We were then to fly overhead a nominated recovery airfield and broadcast blind for instructions?

Would anyone have been listening? Would we have got into the airfield MEZ anyway? Some airfields we had to get out the gazetteer to find out where they were as we had never heard of places like Bardufoss or Yesilkoy. In those days the V-force was very insulate, isolated, and secretive. We did not consider ourselves part of NATO and were more sympathetic to the USAF and SAC. We would have operated beyond NATO.

Once we landed that was another matter.

In Cyprus we had an escape and evasion lecture. Robin Hardisty, the CSRO, was struggling with an uphill fight to convince us that it was viable to walk out of central Russia from several hundred miles behind the Urals. Most of us planned to walk EAST, find a nice Mongolian and a yurt, and settle down for ever after.