Victor cockpit visibility?
 

How was it?

I suppose it depended on how many of the crew were chuffing their pipes :E

True, but the smoke would rise and only cloud the view looking up. :ok:

I'm curious about the view forward for taxi, landing, etc.

Having learned a little about the Vulcan, I'm attempting the same here.

An oxymoron, surely?

Although ex-Victor chums such as Art Field and Mr Bernoulli will provide more proper comment!

I googled "view from a victor cockpit" and found a few shots and anecdotes, however best to hear it from the horse's mouth when the ppruning Victor chums start their alert duty ! pp

Don't suppose you wanted too much vis when the big bomb went off.

If you're really serious;

Alphasim Handley-Page Victor HP.80 Prototype Pack No.1 Textures Only ..... The model has virtual cockpit with full 3D: gauges, switches, instruments.

http://www.simviation.com/files/comm...Victor_PK1.zip

I came back to flying the Victor, in an examining capacity, having spent a few years on other transport and AAR aircraft. I had a fair amount of time on the Victor previously but was somewhat unprepared for the poor vision from the flight deck - I said to my examining colleague - "its like looking through a letter-box!"

"You can see what?"

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/b...py/seewhat.jpg

And don't ask Mr Bernoulli. He never looked out anyway! ;)

Wasn't a sponge tied to a snooker cue an essential bit of kit to remove condensation?

TW 50, Hi, you beat me to it,I agree the postbox feeling. If you add that the glass often seemed frosted especially when it rained, you would be thankful for the DV window provided you could crouch down to look out of it. Otherwise vision was perfect. So what she was an amazing aircraft. EOSM37, by sitting in a Victor.

brick, you may have seen this - it includes a couple of brief shots from inside. You'll work out which is Avro and which is HP. Brilliant production :ok::ok:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PO-KaDtzmcU

There was a maximum of 18º (?) pitch up indicated on the AI, beyond that you couldn't see the horizon out the front so you had to try and fly visually looking sideways out of the DV window to assess your pitch. Scary.

Forget,

Nice vid thanks.

But why is there a Gp Capt ADC in the RHS and LHS?

No idea - but the Vulcan at 1:42 is reversed. If you're really really bored, you'll see why from the one at 6:45. :8

Marham's station commander perhaps? The gentleman who held that post in the early nineties did seem to spend a lot of time with 55 Sqn.

Yes I know the staish at Marham is an ADC having E"R on the four rings on account of having her madge's country house in his/her back yard, but I can't be that bored.
Besides I'm on my third bottle of Old Rosie.

I didn't know they could reverse!!! :ok:

You obviously had a slack moment or two to spot that one.:ok:

Yep, you are a :8.

Can someone elucidate as to why Vulcan carried on so long and Victor didn't? The discussion passed me by at the time. What was wrong with Victor?

In my defence M'Lud, after many a beedin' cranium from bumping into L Band aerials you sort of notice when someone moves the ECM plate across the aircraft. :sad:

What was wrong with the Victor? Short answer - low level ops after Gary Powers, Vulcan won on fatigue life.

Style!
 

Forget.

VMT for the vid. Loved the chap in the sharp suit and cloth headset (it appeared) heading towards the Vulcan Mk1. Ahhhhhh, that was style! I do hope he was the captain. (I realise he was most probably the test pilot, but still smoothly attired).

Pip pip ON

Old Ned
 

I believe the chap in the suit was probably Roly Falk, who I believe was the Avro Chief test pilot.

I think he was also the pilot who rolled the Vulcan over the Avro factory at the end of a test flight. Footage does exist somewhere, and what a sight it is! :ok:

Treble one

"Can someone elucidate as to why Vulcan carried on so long and Victor didn't? The discussion passed me by at the time. What was wrong with Victor?"

I'm not an expert by any means, but according to Vulcan 607, it was the change from high attitude to low attitude to avoid Soviet air defences. This placed more strain on the airframes, chiefly the wings, and reduced their service lives. The Valiant was the most severly affected apparently, followed by the Victor and then the Vulcan (the rigid wing supposedly coped better). Hence the Valiant was retired pretty quickly and the Victors were converted to tankers, leaving the Vulcans.

I'm sure someone who actually has first hand knowledge will be able to provide a better answer though.

Vulcan roll
 

Eagle402. Thanks for the link. It also pointed to http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=17GfXQ...eature=related , one of the prototypes being rolled off the top of a loop. From that angle and that lighting, I can't identify the narrator.

Sorry (slightly) for contributing to the natural drift away from Sir Fred's creation.

Even more :8 :

Victor @ 3:37, scrambling with the tow bar attached? :ooh: I know it's just set up for the film, but........;)

Victor @ 4:30, is that the tail fin of a Lancaster in the right of frame? What an indication of the speed of aviation advances in those years :ok:

GBZ: Roly Falk?

Brick,

Just to get back OT: have you seen these photos?


http://www.classicaircraft.co.uk/photos/photo061.jpg


http://www.classicaircraft.co.uk/photos/photo062.jpg

Linky

I didn't think so but there's no telling how chaps age. Where's the Vulcan when we need him!

The fin may well be a Lincoln.

SP, I had not. Thanks and to those with the other photos and links.


So the answer appears to be 'not great.'

Treble One & Eagle 402

Many thanks for the Roly Falk gen and the Vulcan clip. Have found another with the commentary by the irreplaceable Raymond Baxter (BoB Spitfire pilot);

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in4Pmp84BWM

Don't think the roll was at Farnborough though. Gosh, I would love to have shaken the hands of both these great men.

Pip pip ON

I do remember, however, an OCU conversion sortie which involved a high speed run in a Mk 1 without the use of the Mach Strut. Somewhere up at 45000 ft or above we began a shallow dive. At about M0.95, and with the aircraft pitching down furiously, my instructor said - "look out." Fresh from training, I did! Not that there was much to see (see earlier posts) - by which time we were very close to, or had actually exceeded M1.0!

View.....
 

The view out for the AEO and Nav (post combining Radar and Plotter into 1 job) was strictly limited, being through 1 rather small porthole each. As the disbandment of 55 approached I was on a crew that took one of our last airframes to Manston for the Fire School to play with. Manston approach gave us the "Dover tour" clockwise round the coast from the Thames to the Sussex border. Having viewed the tour through said porthole I heard the AEO complain that all he'd seen was sea :\

The obliging Approach Controller then gave us the tour backwards to redress the AEO's deprivation! :}

Narrator
 

Guys,

I don't know the name of the Narrator on the clip so kindly provided by Eagle, but the clip comes from a Vulcan DVD I bought my Dad for his birthday one year. The narrator was a someone who worked on the assembly line at the Avro factory, and helped build the aircraft in question.

When Roly Falk rolled the Vulcan, he managed to smash most of the windows in the factory roof......:ok:

el:#21: Can someone elucidate as to why Vulcan carried on so long and Victor didn't? What was wrong with Victor? Nothing. In 1959 both Marks 2 were underway, equally esteemed. Fatigue was not a design, or Spec. issue - high/far was wanted. 'Twas all to do with Skybolt and devious HSAL.

“few (contracts caused) such bitter feelings (as Blue Steel) even in ’56 (Avro puffed 1,000n.m. for later BS.Marks. MoS felt that if they) could not perfect (100n.m.) how could they (do) 10xthat? (Weapons Research Divn, many ex-RAE staff) weak management structure (criticisms) recriminations (were) common parlance” RAF Deterrent Official History, H.Wynn,P202/4. In despair, in January,59 UK joined a USAF Reqt., won June by Douglas (to be) AGM-48 Skybolt ALBM. UK appointed Avro as Sister Firm responsible for integration with RAF's 2 platforms. They said it would not fit under low Victor wings. Sir Fred HP said he would sort that, but he had been deemed "difficult" by MoS, as they juggled the "measure of coalescence" that became HSAL+BAC. Avro gave MoS the excuse needed to leave HP out in the cold. 3rd. Victor B.Mk.2 squadron was abandoned (became SR.2), first 2 to be confined to Blue Steel; all 72 Skybolt platforms to be Vulcan B.2.

That would be the late Dougie Godfrey. He was a foreman on the Vulcan production line at Woodford. He was also the "chairman" of the 603 Club at Woodford, responsible for taking care of XM603. His death was a factor in 603's decline over the last 5 or 6 years I have read somewhere... :sad:

Mission profile
 

Chaps... what mission profile would the Vulcan have flown if it had to drop the big one on the Soviets?
Low - high speed and one way I suspect?
Excuse my ignorance but I assume it progressed from dropping a dumb nuke, to flying an entiorely different standoff stype mission with the Blue Steel?
Any former drivers who could tell stories of what the rehearsals were like?
(Without breaking any rules of course:E)
That video gives an idea of how scary the whole exercise would have been.

Vulcan roll
 

Roly Falk did barrel roll the Vulcan at Farnborough; I can't recall the exact year as I went every year starting in 1952 and remember it as one of the highlights of those early visits. I think it was VX777 in 1953 and Falk was flying solo.
On a more somber note, I witnessed the DeH 110 breaking up as it flew towards the crowd and seeing the engines soar over our heads and plough into the crowd behind us. I was part of a very large group of Blackburn Aircraft employees who had travelled down from Brough. As we had all made our way individually from London to Farnborough, we couldn't get a head count until we boarded the train home later that evening.

According to Tony Blackman's book 'Vulcan Test Pilot' Roland (Roly) Falk practiced a few barrel rolls from Woodford on the 31st August 1955, possibly in XA889 (without warning the rest of the crew!). He then performed rolls at that year's Farnborough show, possibly in XA890, telling no-one except the show's commentator.

Of course it generated a lot of interest but Falk inevitably got a ticking off from the authorities and was forbidden to repeat it, even though he was able to show that there was positive g throughout the manoevre which was carried out only whilst the plane was climbing. He got his nickname from this episode.

Why is it that any V-Force thread, regardless of the starting aircraft type, always ends up as a Vulcan nostalgia session. I accept it was and hopefully is a great display aircraft but having been involved with all three, consider it to have been the least use operationally of the trio.

Ducks right down.