The Marham village sign
 

Noah,

Haven't seen that video but the village sign - has it got a bull in the centre? If so it is the base sign made by a fine local artist, whose name escapes me for the moment, who did in fact make village signs and donated this one to RAF Marham - probably in return for the hospitality of the officers mess - bar, that is...

FEW CLOUDY,
I'll get back to you tomorrow re- the village sign.

FJJP,
Thanks for the info on the air scoops.
N.Z.

Victor hatches
 

Interestingly (but not for the crew!) a similar hatch incident occurred in the early eighties. As the Co adjusted his seat down in mid sortie, the seat emergency oxygen bottle fouled on a poorly routed hatch jettison cable, causing the hatch jettison to operate with the same results as in the post above. Needless to say, the pins went in pretty sharpish, followed eventually by an uneventful landing.

Victor Park Brake Lever

Early Victors had a park brake lever over the UP U/C selector.
This was to stop wheels spinning during retraction.

Result - after a go round at BD pilot changed his mind about retraction after setting park brake.

Next Result - all tyres blew and rims bu@##$% - big dent in reputation of a test pilot.

Any other known recurrences and what was the fix?

Some nice stories and pictures of Victors on these links

Tanker Tales

Victor Pictures

AAR Pictures

I think you will find the Marham sign was made by Harry Carter, a local artist and member of the Carter of Egyptian tombs fame family.

Few Cloudy,
It's negative on the "Marham" sign, I'm afraid. There's a distinct absence of 'bull', and although it's a close-up piccy of the sign, one can see that there are trees gently wafting in the breeze behind it, suggesting that this one is situated al fresco!
Regs. Noah.

- Milt, don't know of a fix but the drill was to brake the wheels manually before retraction on the K1a. The Maxaret anti skid only started to work once the wheels had spun up - so at the Outer Marker there was a feet off brakes check too.

- Noah and Art, Thanks - yes Harry Carter was the man - also restored some Marham pictures in the mess.

Now come on, ex-Victor people, tell us alll about the infamous "OMO" times......

You know you want to! Really:E

Beags, the trouble is that even at this distance, most of the memorable events in the lives of Victor crews are best left unwritten, far too hot to be on general release.

And let's not forget sunning(?) ourselves in South Dakota on Prairie Vortex!

The word "Rapid" takes on a whole new meaning when you are living in Rapid City for 3 months!

Noah Zark,

The 3 people in your video would be Tim Butler, Spike Flynn and Bill Scragg. 1993 was the last year of the Victor - the squadron disbanded and crews were dispersed far and wide.

These tales remind me of a time at an airshow in Canada in 1991, standing in front of a Victor K2. A kid walked around the aircraft, read the information board and then came up to me to ask a question.

Kid: 'Were you in the Gulf War?'

Me (proudly): 'Yes, we were'

Kid (after a small pause): 'Which side were you on?'

So did the Vulcans have all the fun then?
 

Reading about Skyshield, it seems as if all the fun stuff like this went to the Vulcans.

Did the Victors not get a look in? I know they were a smaller proportion of the V-Force and had the bomber role for a relatively short period.

Any tales from 543 Squadron*? As a sqeaky ATC cadet, I was most impressed by their smart shiny Victors on my 1st annual camp back in 1972. Maybe their work is still Not To Be Talked About? The crews who showed us round the aircraft seemed very proud of them.

I still find the Victor very impressive. It has a sort of "Dan Dare" look to the nose and T-tail aircraft always look graceful in flight.

Mark.

*other than the Victor losses in '66 & 73.

Trying to catch a heavily fuel laden Victor tanker with a heavily laden Hercules on an air bridge abt 18000 ft somewhere over the south Atlantic.....Herc..."Can you slow down a bit?"
Victor.."If I do I'll fall out of the "F-ing Sky"
Herc.. "If you don't ssoooo will I!!"
Victor. "Can you plug in in the descent?"
Herc... "only if you slow down!"

Big silence.

Victor .." If I descend first and you then dive down to catch me will that work?

16000 feet later,heading in the opposite direction to avoid weather....just going IMC .."Contact..pushing in".
Big sighs of relief all round.
How many herc engines got "cooked" trying to catch a victor tanker....at least 24!!! to my personal knowledge!!
:ok:

543 tale for BikerMark.
Wyton was a wonderful place in the mid-60s for a young, single co-pilot on 543. (It was wonderful for others, too, as the SIB subsequently discovered!). As such a one, I enjoyed Friday night twofers to the full and in those days knew nothing of recommended units of alcohol and such like fun dampers. Incidentally, I used to think we were called “livers-in” because of where we lived – now I realise it was because we were still young enough to have our own!

Anyway, it seemed I had hardly managed to find my bed in the small hours of Saturday morning, when there was a knock on the door and a batman (yes, those were the days) said “phone call for you, sir”. Naturally it was the Sqn, with the usual “X has gone sick, need a copilot” message.
“But...but...I’m still pi$$ed”
“It’s only a quick trip to Colt for a static display. Can you sit in the RHS and do as you’re told?”
“Err... I suppose...”
“Good. Get over here ASAP”. Well, you didn’t argue in those days. We had batmen, yes, but we didn’t have CRM.

“Your take-off” said the Captain, with an evil grin. Now the Victor2 was much livelier than the Mk1 and at light weights it was outrageous! We passed the upwind end of the runway going through 6000ft, me hanging on to the controls helplessly while my mind spun quietly round, still on the runway. Top of Climb, autopilot in and my mind caught up with me. It made me feel sick.

“Your landing.” Said the evil Captain. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Discipline or not, I refused. They do experiments these days, with simulators, on the effect of alcohol on flying. I know the effect and believe me, I never did it again!

After we landed at Colt we were taken to the Mess where, guess what? Our friendly hosts had opened the bar early for the Open Day...!

Scene: A static display line at an airshow somewhere in the mid west of the US of A in the late 80s. DW is very hung over and bored beyond senseless by answering unending inane questions from the lower end product of the US rural schooling system, who don't seem to know that other countries other than the US of A even exist. A 300lb red neck approaches with the look that says he's just thought of a really good question.

300lbRK. "Hey buddy, what sort of airplane is this?"

DW. "It's a Victor".

300lbRK. "So what does it do?"

DW. "It's the British stealth bomber. It's only just become operational, just ahead of the B2".

300lbRK. "Oh! How did you get it here?"

DW. We had to ship it out. We couldn't fly it here because it's still secret"

300lbRK "Wow, I must tell my buddies".

He obviously did, as a story about the secret British stealth bomber at the town's airshow appeared in the local paper the next day!

Well, to be fair, it does look more modern than a B-2.

Met an ex-Victor co once, who then became both a dentist and flew for, I think, Spotty M. He told of a time as a green JP at Marham, manning the spare for a trail to Singapore. Ended up launching and arriving at Tengah a few days later with only his SD hat, long johns and goon suit.

Also told of a billiards cue with a sponge bodge-taped to it as a handy windscreen de-mist back up.

You out there Tom?

Strange no-one's mentioned that it could (and did) drop a greater bomb load in one drop than any other British aeroplane...

The Victor may have had a larger bomb load than all of Avro's Bombers, but Avro had the last laugh when they converted the Victors to Tankers.

Which was better, the Victor or the Vulcan. Could the Lucky Pilots who flew both, pass on their thoughts as to how the two aircraft performed and which they preferred.

My thoughts as groundcrew: The Vulcan was my favourite (Well I only worked on the Victor for 6 Hours), but there was something in the way the Victor just sat there looking menacing and yet so graceful at the same time.

Mike Jenvey, We have probably met in the distant past, I was a Fairy on 50 Sqn from 1979 to it's demise in 1984, and although the HDU was a bit of a bodge job, at least it removed the age old Fairy problem of Water/Glycol running down your arm and up the sleeve when the hoses refused to lock on first time.

As to Start up, at least on the Vulcan we could stand in the dry, and if the AEO was a good'un he would start the rover and warm us up and dry us out.

From a receiver pilot's viewpoint, the Victor was probably the worst tanker we ever had! But only because the Mk 20 pods at low tanker fuel weights couldn't keep up with the offload requirements of an F4!

The Vulcan was a very nice, stable platform to prod - the only mildly disorientating thinhg was the 2 underwing anti-colls gave the impression (at night) that you were further aay from the drogue than you really were. The MFI wardrobe HDU housing wasn't the best - and I once prodded a Vulcan drogue and the HDU failed to take up the slack properly, leading to a large travelling wave coming back down the hose towards me! Fortunately I disconnected quickly before it did so, else it would have taken the probe tip! But a rewind and trail fixed it and we got our gas!

I prodded the F4 against Victor, Vulcan, KC-135 (+BDA) and KC-10. In order of preference, I'd put the Vulcan and KC-10 equal first, then the Victor - but the KC-135 (+BDA) a very distant last!

I never prodded the VC10 against the Victor, but witnessed quite a few attempts from the co-pilots seat. The vibration, buffeting and trim changes involved were considerable and must have had a considerable adverse effect on a/c fatigue consumption!

With the number of stickies being something of an issue to some folk, perhaps the 'Vulcan' and 'Victor' threads could be combined into a single "Were you in the V-force" sticky?

Unsticking this one appears to have revived it though.

BEagle. On your comment "it would have taken the probe tip". Did this actually happen when re-fuelling and what were the consequences if any?

lasernigel I know your question was addressed to Beagle but I'll answer as it did happen to me. I was Tanking in a Nimrod, from a Tristar, when just the sort of travelling wave that Beagle described developed. We weren't quick enough to break contact and the hose just ripped out the probe tip easy as anything! No particular consequences - not in the Nimrod, anyway. In fact one of the nice things about AAR was that it was about the only activity where you could damage HM aeroplanes with impunity!

The official advice given should your overtake speed on contact be too high for the HDU to take up the slack was to sit there and take what was coming. As the probe tip has a sideways shear force of about 1000lbs, this invariably meant leaving it stuck in the basket! There were few structural flight safety implications, but the fuel hoovering out of the now open basket mushroom valve meant that your in flight visibilty was somewhat impaired. Not such a good thing considering how close you were to another aircraft!

I saw it happen twice, but not as a result of my handling I'm pleased to say.

The probe tip is fitted with a weak link secured by shear rivets. The idea is that if things get tense, the probe tip breaks cleanly and stays in the drogue. Obviously that puts both reciever probe and hose out of action, but no other really significant consequence.

I've seen tipless probes with a bean tin speed-taped over the soggy end used as a get-you-home device before now.

The Timmy has a habit of walloping rather high fuel pressures down the hose if allowed to - I've had excess fuel pressure blow the probe tip out of the drogue on initial contact behind a TriShaw. Making contact with low pressure in the hose and then selecting the Carter pumps on seems to help - and stopped the pulsing effect.

On the A310 MRTT, the current plan is for 2 Carter pumps to supply the AAR gallery, pressure is then regulated and augmented at the pod by the RAT ('pod prop') system. But the Carters are quite powerful beasts, so I can't see the pod RATs having to work particularly hard!

Just to ask another on refuelling.Has anyone done it the "USAF way" with a probe and which works better?

KC135 MPRS
 

The KC135s now often get airborne with their equivalent of the HDUs on the VC10, allowing probe-equipped USAF/USN ac to refuel using probe and drogue rather than the boom method. There is a limited number of sets at Mildenhall, so not all 135s have them.

IIRC, MPRS = Multi-Point Refuelling System.

Can anyone out there confirm whether and which RAF ac are cleared to refuel from MPRS? From what I have heard and read, it would seem to be a much better option than BDA! Such a capability might also improve prospects for bootleg!!!!!!!!

Is n't a bit of knowledge a dangerous thing? The HDU is the centre hose on the VC10 and the 135 no direct equivalent. I take it STH means the wing hoses of the MPRS equipped ac. The availability of said assets has f*** all to do with sets rather the no of ac that have been modded. The set no problems is that on the KC10. All types of the FJs in theatre in GW2 used the MPRS but I cant say whether the RTS' still allow this.

BEags -just read your crit on tanker types. The Mk 20 pod gave a low fuel flow whatever the Victor fuel state which is why out of choice we refuelled F4s on the HDU rather than in pairs on the wings. I cant believe the lash up on the Vulcan was any better that the Victor HDU.

No mate - the HUD installation was much the same, but the airflow behind the a/c was smoother. Plus there was no other option, so pitching up on the wing of a Vulcan meant that you'd always find a centreline hose, rather than having to ask for a hose swap on the Victor if it had the Mk 20s hoses extended.

Have seen the films of clearing GAF Tornados against the KC-135 MPRS. Very exciting - but better than the BDA for sure. Only had to prod that once - that was on a live scramble in a Q-fit F4 with 3 tanks and 8 rockets and without having had the benefit of any instruction, either dual or theoretical.....

Vascodegama ...

Sorry, muppetry acknowledged, not intended.

Yes, I did indeed mean to compare the under-wing hose units on the VC10 with those on the KC135.

Notwithstanding the previous confusion, during a visit a few months ago to Mildenhall, the crew hosting us were quite specific that the number of sets available at the Unit was limited. Perhaps it was their use of phraseology that created the confusion in my mind, but the implication was that there were more airframes able to take the pods themselves than there were pods. Moreover, the pods themselves were 'removable' (no small task I know), so that for extended periods where the additional capability was not required, the airframes could operate without the drag which the pods must create.

Back to the original question: I know that one of the reasons the MPRS was developed was to allow the KC-135 to support USN ac types, and an old Boeing press release:

http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/...e.970120a.html

indicated that the intention was additionally to provide the capability for other NATO ac. What I want to know is whether a routine UK sortie of F3s/Jags/GR4s/GR9s requesting bootleg would be interested/able to take fuel from a MPRS-equipped KC-135? Given what was said about GW II refuelling, presumably this is, as vascodegama suggests, an RTS issue. Does anyone know, or should I just not bother looking at AARA 8 next time I am asked if there is any bootleg available in the North Sea?

Keithl - TVM for the 543 anecdote. I can imagine the climb out you described. The SR2s I saw operating certainly looked very lively.

I had my first introduction to the pleasures and perils of the hop at Wyton.

Mark.

Sorry my ignorance and wording. What I meant to ask was ..Has anyone done it with the boom method when on exchange with the USAF and which method do they think is better?

I guess the main difference between handling the Victor and the Vulcan was the speed at which you flew the approach. Is that correct Mike? :E

Ya Zi, is your other name Ron Atkinson?.

The MPRS fit is the same as on the French KC135Fs, albeit the French aircraft use the FR MK32 pod wheras the USAF use the Sergeant Fletcher version of the same pod - although I believe Sergteant Fletcher may well be owned by FR now. The pod sits right at the very wingtip out of necessity (due to the outboard engines). Consequently, it sits in the wing Vortex and needs an airflow deflector on the pod to cancel out the effect of the Vortex as well as an 80' hose as opposed to the 50' one normally fitted. I gather it makes receiving from it quite sporty at times - especially if you drift towards tthe centreline and catch the efflux from the engine.

Damn! Found out already.

PS. Anyone need a sports commentator?

Lasernigel,

The RAF Sentries are equipped to be refuelled via a boom , I've witnessed one from the cockpit of a Sentry that refuelled from a KC-135.

As it was my first "jump seat ride", I wouldn't be able to make any informed comments on the technicalities of it compared to the probe and drogue (maybe someone from 8 or 23 Sqns would care to) . But it did feel unusual to see a guy with baseball cap and headset on staring at you from the tail of the tanker that was only about 5 metres away!

The philosophical query has been raised about why the Vulcan always seem to get a better press than the Victor? When I talked with the Handley Page design team many years ago, they felt the same grief over the way in which the Lancaster always seemed to overshadow the Halifax. Radlett strove to design a jet bomber that could carry more, and fly further and higher than the Avro opposition, and the Victor did that (e.g. 35,000lb bomb load compared with 21,000lb for the Vulcan). We must get round to posting the photo of Tommy Thomson dropping 35 1,000lb bombs on the Song Song range.

But it didn't seem to make any difference, and I think the answer is two-fold. First, the aluminium triangular overcast was a more awesome sight at flying displays. Second the Victor became a multi-role aircraft, whereas the Vulcan was pretty much bomber focused. Witness the proportion of tanker or SR related tales on this thread.

Talking of which, while on the Victor 2 OCU I represented RAF Wittering on the parade marking the disbandment of Bomber Command and the stand-up of STC in 1968. My mind had wandered to the legs of the PM officer with the Nocton Hall flight when the flypast started. At below 1,000ft, in swept a Victor three point tanker, supposedly with three Lightnings hooked in trail. But only two Lightnings ran-in, leaving one hose unattached. The third Lightning had gone in during the join up, killing the pilot. Nowadays, the flying display would have been cancelled while everyone shared their pain. In 1968, the attitude was somewhat more robust.

Flat Iron... be careful of the well-known pic of the Victor dropping the 35 1000 pounders... it's a fake! On the occasion you mention there were, apparently, plenty of Indonesian press in boats nearby (for that was the whole point of the event!), but I've never seen any pics taken on the day.

Even asked the Gp Capt in AHB to dig some out for me... heard nothing since.