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"Observers on the ground, who had heard the destruction of our engines, watched the aircraft descend slowly out of sight over the Lincolnshire Edge and waited for the much bigger bang that was to follow"

In September 1968 at RAF Scampton we were rolling for take-off in Avro Vulcan B Mk 2 XL425, armed with a fuelled Blue Steel training missile. lt was not a live nuclear weapon, of course, but the 16,000Ib missile, full of high test peroxide and kerosene, was a large bomb in its own right. Shortly after the call to ”rotate", at about 140kts, there was a double bang and the aircraft shuddered. We had flown into a flock of seagulls, wrecking an engine, which had then spat compressor blades into its neighbour, doubling our trouble. And trouble it was, on two engines, low and slow, at maximum all-up weight. Abandoning the aircraft was a real possibility.

My task, as the navigator radar, was to leave my seat and prepare to open the crew access door in the floor, 4ft below me. The rear crew would use their manual parachutes for escape, the pilots their ejection seats; still a controversial issue in the V Force at the time.

Our get-away was going to be hindered by the presence of the nosewheel leg immediately behind the door.

ln the crew trainer we practised escape in these conditions, which involved using the doorjacks and advanced gymnastics to swing around the leg. This was easy enough on the training rig, but harder in a 150kt slipstream. The navigator plotter and air electronics officer reckoned that this was not a problem, as the undercarriage leg would be padded with the body of the nav radar (me), who was scheduled to leave first.

l sat by the door, waiting for the “abandon aircraft” call. Looking up at the navigation instruments, l saw that both airspeed and altitude were reading 150 and in slow decline. Remembering that my static-line parachute needed 300ft for deployment, I returned to my seat to sit it out with my buddies. Observers on the ground, who had heard the destruction of our engines, watched the aircraft descend slowly out of sight over the Lincolnshire Edge and waited for the much bigger bang that was to follow.

l am still here because the drop into the Trent Valley enabled the captain to find the few knots of airspeed necessary to fly the big delta through to the other side of the drag curve and accelerate to a safe flying speed. We thought about jettisoning the missile, but found that we couldn't; but that’s another story. Fifteen minutes later, after a very overweight landing, my shortest, hairiest Vulcan sortie was over. - Wg Cdr Chris Reid RAF (Retired)

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