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.