Long Distance RAF Hercules Flights falklands

[DougGordon]

I am trying to find out about 24 hour round trips by RAF Hercules C-1s from Ascension to the the Falklands; with out landing and, of course supported by IFR.
Can anyone help me with dates, squadrons, serial numbers or any other information related to any of these flights?
Thanks.

[SirPeterHardingsLovechild]

Released to the press at the time, so in the public domain

World Record Hercules Flight - 28 Hrs 3 mins

18th/19th June 1982

70 Sqn, fuel from Victors

Capt - Flt Lt Locke
Co - Fg Off Collins
Nav - Flt Lt Boyle
Eng - Sgt Wood
ALM - MALM Whiting
Capt 2 - Flt Lt O'Brien
Nav 2 - Flt Lt Williams

XV179

I have the photos

[Gainesy]

What was the limiting factor on that? Oil, Oxygen, Ginsters?

[charliegolf]

What was the limiting factor

Co must have been a tad sleepy!

CG

[The Real Slim Shady]

Was the Co Tim Collins now of VS ?

And the Nav Al Boyle ex UGSAS?

[bunta130]

The Co was indeed Scroggs, of VS and moderator fame.

Terry Locke....that takes me back, he used to put his cigarettes and lighter in front of VOR 1 - the space was perfect for a king size Benson's (from memory) packet. After the flaps were in, it was a call of 'coffee, white, 3' to the Loadie and 'check oxygen off' for the rest of us before clearing 'First Class' and sparking up.......

Those were the days

[EdSett100]

What was the limiting factor on that? Oil, Oxygen, Ginsters?

It was fuel.

[Porrohman]

There are 9 pages of interesting info about these missions here;
Lyneham Village Online 'Hercules Story'
The problems refuelling a C-130 from a Victor make interesting reading. Each rendezvous was difficult and the refuelling then had to be accomplished in a shallow dive to enable the Hercules to keep up with the Victor. Respect to all those involved.

[Captain Airclues]

Did Terry Locke join BA? If so I remember training him on the 747 in the 80's. He was ex Hercs.

[Mactlsm1]

And the Nav Al Boyle ex UGSAS?

It was that Al Boyle. I worked with Al during his last tour as C130 RTSA at Wyton. Top Bloke!

Mac

[fergineer]

Porro.....it was'nt just the Victor that we had to use the shallow dive technique, it was used on the herc to herc AAR as well.......just imagine finding the tanker then refuelling and staying in contact till they could give no more and then climbing again with full tanks....aaahhh the memories both from the tanker and receiver views many an hour spent flying to and fro form ASI to MPA or ASI ASI in the tanker. Terry was on TTF when i gained my AARI ticket a real nice guy.

[OmegaV6]

Warning thread drift ......

Standard routing in the "old days" would have been

Lyneham - Akrotiri (Cyprus) - Masirah (Gulf of Oman) - Gan (Indian Ocean) - Columbo (Sri Lanka) - Tengah (Malaysia)

If heavy Bahrain might be featured as well HTH

End thread drift ...

[DougGordon]

Thanks very much for the input. It is much appreciated.

[c130 alm]

XV179 was the aircraft shot down near Baghdad. Seems it will be remembered for 2 very different reasons.

[ancientaviator62]

It should be remembered that the Herc tanker had to depressurise to carry out it's refuelling task. The subsequent attempts to repressurise on the flog back to ASI usually only resulted in a 10-13000ft cabin alt..

[fergineer]

ancient you must have either run out of blue roll or water as that always seemed to work for me.......cant remember having any real problems .

[Old Fella]

Difficulty re-pressurising.

Ancientaviator62. Could you expand on the difficulty in re-pressurising after air to air refuel from the C130? Can't think of any reason, other than leakage or pressure controller defects, as to why you could not regain full cabin pressurisation control as per normal (around 5000' cabin alt at FL280). Was this a "one off" event or was it a regular one?

[ancientaviator62]

The RX /Tanker combo would have tobogganed down to around 6000 ft whilst carrying out the refuel. They would then go on their separate ways, the RX to the Falklands the tanker back to Asi. Although the tanker would now be considerably lighter it would still take time to climb back up to altitude. One of the problems post tanking was that often the safety valve would not close due to being frozen in the open position. The ALM was then required to 'assist' it manually. All this time the ac is climbing., so the ALM used blue roll liberally soaked in water to try to plug the various holes in the rear of the aircraft to minimise the loss of precious pressure ! Lack of blue roll was a 'No Go' item for the tanker ! The Herc tankers were from the outset operated at max overload weights and towards the end of their use the frames were seriously 'bent'. This did not help the efforts of the Air Eng when the time came to repressurise after tanking.