V Bomber
 

Just been watching a Discovery prog on "British Nuclear Bombers".
My [and the Exs'] fave is the Vulcan.
What's yours?
p.s. Sperrin don't count.....nice, tho'
watp,iktch

chiglet: permit me to direct you to the Military Aviation forum thread entitled "Did you fly the Vulcan?" where you can satiate your admiration for the 'Tin Triangle' to your heart's content! :cool:

Sorry to p1ss on your chips, but the only time a Vulcan ever bombed in anger it missed (the South Atlantic unpleasantness, for our younger readers…).

G-SCUD: Sorry to p1ss on your chips but it did not miss.

FYI, the first bomb of the stick hit almost dead centre in Port Stanley's runway, penetrated, and then detonated.
The second bomb caused similar damage to the edge of the runway.
A later bomb in the stick landed between a hangar and Pucaras parked nearby causing considerable damage to both.

The physical damage may have been small, but the political and psychological impact was massive, in Argentina, Britain and internationally.

It was a major wake-up call to Gualtieri and his boys to the effect that Britain was not fooling and was willing to do whatever it took to retake the islands.

Did the yanks provide the tanker for that flight Henry?

No, they did not Tin, all RAF tankers.

And that reminds me....was standing on the edge of the runway at Subrough, a red light from the tower telling me not to cross. I looked to the north. On my end of trails of black smoke was a large object. Probably better not to ignore the red light.

Within a minute, a Vulcan was right beside me, it's wheels only inches from the concrete. I thought ‘how the hell is that going to stop?' Suddenly the wheels tucked themselves away.

Then it hit me, in the chest, in the teeth and then down to my toes, a noise so loud that one did not need ears to hear it.

To say that the rotation was spectacular, would be a universal prize-winning understatement, I could see all of the top of the wings; an area the size of several tennis courts. It seemed to be pointing at an angle twice that needed to clear Sumbrough Head and as it punched a hole in the sky and vanished, I had one thought.

"Lucky, Lucky Bsatards!!!!!!!"

There was a fascinating book written by a Fleet Air Arm pilot who calculated how much fuel it took to get each bomb overhead Stanley on a Vulcan, and how much fuel it took to get a bomb overhead on a Harrier. Then how many hit the target. Great stuff.

Used to get Vulcans flying over the village I grew up in the Lakes, was almost as if you could reach out and grab them out of the air.

slim_slag: Did the Fleet Air Arm pilot also calculate how much fuel the carriers burned getting the Harrier to the South Atlantic ?

I have a feeling that if he did that calculation for two carriers from UK to Falklands, plus the support ships that the carriers would not move without, plus the aircraft fuel used, and applied it to the number of bombs the Harriers scored on Port Stanley's runway the answer might not be as one sided as he obviously wants to make out.

You're probably referring to Sea Harrier Over the Falklands by Sharkey Ward.

I was on that Vulcan Squadron at the time. You bomb on the diagonal to ensure a hit. Bombing at ninety degrees, you may get one bomb either side of the target. Bomb parallel to the runway and every bomb may miss. There was only ever meant to be one bomb to hit the runway. The only fault was that the middle bomb in the stick should have been that bomb, but any one will do. The damage to the substructure of the runway was huge.

I was also on the Vucan display aircaft :) for two years.

Are there any photographs of the damage sculling around?

http://www.raf.mod.uk/falklands/images/cas047a.jpg
Only one I can find
VEEPS

I'm looking forward to the magical day, hopefully later this year, when the primal howl and earth-shuddering pounding roar of the mighty beast will be heard again, as XH558 take to the air again.

Living only a few miles south of Woodford, we used to see these lovely aeroplanes a lot in the past. Last one I saw in the air was early '90s, when the display Vulcan did a very spectacular departure from EGCC after overnighting there following a Barton display (which I also saw).:ok:

SSD

The V-bomber programme had impressive footage of the Avro test pilot barrel-rolling the prototype. Was it done since? No names expected!

The great Tin Triangle:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a341/nw969/XM571.jpg

:ok:

..And from underneath..

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...K/VulcanB2.jpg

SSD

Apparently, the RAF asked Avro to instruct their chief test pilot Jimmy Harrison, (Early B.2 days) not to do any more barrels over RAF airfields, as the Airships were worried that everyone else was going to have a go and a few overstressed airframes might result.

Conan

Excellent piccies of the Beautiful Beast. But will you guys in the know answer me this, please? In the second piccie above, withe underneath view, what is / was the fairing / cover w.h.y? between the jet pipes on the starboard wing?