V Bombers
 

Suppose the RAF had decided to rationalise and only buy 1 V bomber.

Which would it have been? (Victor my guess)

And how would whatever it was have coped when tactics were switched to low level?

My guess Vulcan, so no change when tactics were switched to low level.

The Vulcan looked good, the Victor looked better, but the Valiant was a cracking aircraft.

` the Valiant was a cracking aircraft`.....literally..!:hmm:

The Victor looked good? Each to their own, I suppose, but to me looked like summat Jules Verne had cooked up.

The Vulcan, though.... just magnificent. No co-incidence it's one of those that still flies (albeit rather gently compared to RAF displays), and not one of the other two V bombers.

The Valiant was a pretty aeroplane but Vickers test pilots are on record as saying that above 400k IAS they preferred the handling of the prop-driven, straight-winged, manual-controlled Vanguard!

It would have been the Victor or Vulcan. The Valiant and Sperrin were stop gap in case those two failed. My guess would have been the Victor. Two pilots, jettisionable cockpit, larger bomb load etc.

And just how many times was the jettisonable cockpit used on the Victor. Granted it had a bigger bomb bay, but 1 dose of instant sunshine was enough.

DJ: Dates: Valiant: first flight 18/5/51, No. 1 prototype crashed 12/1/52; first production order (25), 9/2/51 (50% funded by US MDAP);
Vulcan: f/f: 30/8/52, No.1 prot. crashed 14/9/58. Its wing proof-of concept 707 had flown on 4/9/49 and crashed 30/9/49; 1st. production order (25), 22/7/52;
Victor: f/f: 24/12/52, No.1 prot. crashed 14/7/54. Its wing proof-of-concept H.P.88 had flown 21/6/51, crashed 26/8/51; 1st. production order (25), also 22/7/52.
Their store, to be Blue Danube, was seen to work on 3/10/52. Super Priority status for materials/resources was applied to both Vulcan and Victor, 12/52 after MoS failed to extract a $ contribution to either. "Insurance" had long been standard practice in UK Aero R&D funding, normally ceasing during the prototypes Evaluation process.

So: to address your Q: Valiant was an Interim, to get a bomb truck asap and to permit Bomber Command to lead-in to the definitive type(s). The logical point to concentrate effort on one would have been if MoS/A&AEE had seen any distinction during the test programmes of 1953/54/55. Instead, Churchill's Govt. ordered more of both, and initiated Mark 2 variants to carry (to be) Yellow Sun Mk.1 H-Bomb. The mood of Ministers and Marshals at that time was not to put all Deterrent eggs in one basket. Some remembered that in 1938 we had nearly abandoned Spitfire for Whirlwind-at-Castle Bromwich, Manchester for Halifax-at-Avro.

Macmillan became PM, 10/1/57 and set about axing much Defence (the Sandys Storm). If he had chosen one Deterrent basket, there was then no operational/technical blue water between them. He would logically have chosen the Hawker Siddeley/Bristol team on Vulcans/Olympii, which was industrially/financially heftier than HP.

Once upon a time I worked with the offspring of a V Bomber test pilot ... for the life of me I cannot recall the two manufacturers nor aircraft type(s) involved but one V Bomber was barrel rolled over the factory of another V Bomber. :)

But, during my basic training at Swinderby, I witnessed a Vulcan stall diving (coming straight down whilst corkscrewing), the Victors, whilst somewhat unique in their appearance, could never impress more than a stall diving Vulcan.

The Vulcan handles like a big fighter, which encouraged enthusiastic early demonstration flying. A heavy price was paid for this eventually.

Victor pilots looked at that high T-tail and wisely thought better of it, although with all that thrust at light weight it probably would have performed equally well. It just was never quite tested to destruction in the way the Vulcan was.

Avro seemed better able to engage with Government than Handley Page post WW2 so I agree, the Vulcan probably always had the inside track.

The Vulcan handled like a fighter, despite its tennnis-court dimensions. The others handled like airliners. And in a display the 4 Olympus engines would crush your chest as the air pulsated and turn your feet to jelly as the earth vibrated.

Speys? Pah!

That's why a Vulcan display (a real one, in pre XH558 days) was something you'd never ever forget.

The current displays flown by XH558 are far more graceful than the brutal efforts of the ASG in the latter days of the VDF!

Far smoother and plenty of noise!

I've still got an old VHS tape of the TV programme 'Holiday Air' of many years ago which included a VDF display. Every time I see that stupid wing-rocking in the climb I wince at the pointless airframe fatigue it must have caused.....:rolleyes:

The Victor' jettisionable cockpit was in the design stage but dropped as inpractable during the development stage. The clue was that all the services and controls went though plugs and connectors on the cockpit rear bullkhead.

IIRC one was lost at Wittering when one came adrift and all the electrics for something important stopped.

I think the only loss of a jettisonable nose was when it was tested, a 'clever' electrician noted a long loop of cable and decided to shorten it, this cable was the connection between the nose and its parachute. End result when the nose was banged off was a big THUD as the nose hit the ground having severed the cable before chute actuation.

I would have been severly worried if any of the 4 BIG bolts that held the nose on the Victor ever came adrift. To lose electrical connections, all 4 must be undone, so rather than lose a few 'vital' connections, the whole nose would have fallen off.

So I think the Wittereing episode is just another Victor illusion.

Many years ago flying an RAAF Sabre out of Butterworth I intercepted a B2 Vulcan, he at about 42,000ft, me at 38,000. I snapped up to get a simulated sidewinder shot, but at the instant he was illuminated by my gunsight radar he launched into a max rate climbing turn. Anyway, after 5 or 6 360 degree turns, I was at 48,000ft (unusual - a climbing engagement) he seemed about 10,000 ft higher, but more embarrassing was that he had done one more 360 than me and was perfectly placed to roll in and make a pass at me!

@ fareastdriver & ZH875
 

Victor cockpit

Jettisoning the complete cockpit was investigated during the Victor design phase, but it was discovered that the relative movement of the cockpit-less airframe and the (hopefully) parachute-suspended cockpit was dangerously unpredictable, so the idea was abandoned.

Of the three aircraft, I preferred the Victor because it was the only one from which you could see out properly. Someone once described flying the two others was "like driving my mother-on-law's house from the back bedroom window". Another comment was "like driving a house through the letter-box". High up or low down, drivers need to be able to see what's happening outside.

PS. Apart from the "instant sunshine" load, the ability to carry large numbers of conventional bombs certainly came in useful (as a very credible threat) during, for example, the Indonesian Confrontation, when their deterrent effect, plus what was happening on the ground in Borneo, eventually persuaded enough people in Indonesian high places that they really were on a hiding to nothing.

We had better luck with the Mirage... :ok:

http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/9485/img026w.jpg

Hum! Didn't know they had Photoshop in the sixties. :suspect:

Was that the Mirage that started life as the Fairey Delta Two?

Fairey Mirage
 

Well, Mr. Driver of Sheep, Monsieur Dassault did remark that he just couldn't understand why the Powers That Be preferred the P1B/Lightning to the FD2, but I'm sure that his own teams didn't need outside help (apart from, perhpas, phots ... ???) when designing a versatile delta-winged fighter?
I think he regarded the Lightning as a "one-trick pony", but hjave no reson to say that he was right ...
(FWIW)