Jackinoko - I bow to the bigger anorak!

Hi!
Writing book on flight testing the Vulcan due out June. Can you or anyone help with Mk1 span, length, wing area, empty weight, max TOW?

Jacko, I don't recall the Vimy but I do remember how they tried to illuminate the Valiant basket. IIRC the bought some bicycle dynamos from Halford and strapped them on.

There was also a cartoon in the 60s about a further IFR embellishment. This would have involved the in-flight transfer of rations for the crew as well as fuel for the aircraft :}

The big difference, IIRC, between the Valiant and the Victor 1 was the greater off-load ability in the Valiant. I also think it had the ability to transfer all its fuel!

A Valiant could escort a Javelin from UK to Singapore on 4 legs whereas the Victor needed a post take-off top up and even a possible pre-landing prod as well.

In the early 60s I don't think the AAR doctrine for the bombers had been thought through. We were not planned for operational IFR possibly because of the difficulty of ensuring that both tanker and receiver could launch within the warning period and meet up. By 1963 the plan to have the ability to mount an airborne deterrent had also been dropped.

In the reinforcement case it was certainly possible to 'flow' a stream of bombers from UK to Singapore but the tanker force would have had to pre-position down the route first. The bombers could actually flow down the route earlier if they double staged en route and without the heavy financial and training burden of maintaining an IFR capability.

Note: I use IFR for In-flight refuelling as that was the term in the 60s.

Strangely enough, we're just looking at a new drogue for a certain tanker platform - which uses annular ducts around the drogue shroud to feed air driven generators providing electrical power to lights in the drogue......

Mmm, tried Halfords yet then?

Those bicycle dynamos were made by Miller, the Rolls Royce of dynamos but even so they were rather ineffective. In spite of having three per drogue the chance of even one working was pretty low. They had vanes with airflow directed onto them as a turning force but with unreliable results.

The airborne deterrent was trialled for two weeks in July 62 as Trial 448 and in spite of picking mid-summer the weather caused quite a few problems but I think the main reason it was dropped was the expense. As well as the fuel used there was a considerable amount dumped in order to get the Valiant tanker back on the ground to be ready for the next refuel with limited tanker availability.

The Mk16 HDU on the Valiant also differed from subsequent marks in that it was manually operated. The torque for trailing, refuel and wind was set by the Nav Rad using power or scoop settings via a Wheatstone bridge. This was not always reliable and many a hose trailed to five miles, stripping the brake to pieces. It was also possible for the hose to be unbalanced in refuel giving either a hard contact or the opposite with the hose running in as the receiver neared the drogue. These were early days and much to be learned.

But it's amazing how the wheel has turned full circle with the new air-driven drogue lights!

A chum tells me that the receiver pilots thought they were great - they did the trial in late evening and the drogue was superbly lit. Also the drogue aerodynamic behaviour was, if anything, better than the normal one! And it trailed and rewound very smoothly, with virtually no 'sucking spaghetti' effect.

I'm surprised that, as well as Mr Miller's dynamos, there wasn't a Sturmey Archer 3-speed lurking somewhere within the Valiant's Mk 16 HDU, Arters!

Well now you mention it there was and indeed still is a gear change system in the HDU but it is controlled by a Ledex, not a little lever on the Engineers desk.

Presumably they picked up the Ledex rotary switches at a knock down price from the receiver when John Bloom's Rolls Razor twin tub washing machine company went TU in the early '60s?

Wasn't the correct technque not to look at the basket!......or was that cheating...... :)

Dual: Achieve the stabilzed pre-contact position. Trim. When the red light goes out, add a little power, maintain the reference marks, ignore the drogue.

Solo: Shag up behind the drogue. When the red light goes out, whack on a handful of power and chase the basket.

Solo (US Navy): As above, but don't bother to wait until the red light goes out....:rolleyes:

Victor Info
 

New thread "Were you ever on Victors" gives access to the Tanker World of yesterday. Bob

And think that Bob meant to point out that the Victor thread is in the History and Neuralgia Forum.:)

Current Tanker Information
 

Have you considered looking at ATP-56(B)? Especially the country annexes which contains a significant amount of the information you are looking for. See RAF - Air to Air Refuelling - ATP-56(B)

Why recreate a wheel??

The Victor B1a(K)
 

Chaps,
Flew the two point beast in the early seventies. Balanced field calculations and take-off performance were a great source of wonder to me as P2.
My job was to do the sums.
Upstairs it was superb but it's low speed handling was an education in itself.
I will write futher tommorrow about a current book on the Victor which I bought at Duxford in July this year(publisher etc.).
The last B1a is now under cover at Duxford and I note that I flew it three times with 232 OCU. The Gestapo at the museum would not allow me to have a peek inside after all these years. Bastards!!!!
I see that someone refered to us as "Tanker Mafia". In the seventies we were known as "Tanker Wankers". Fighter Jocks were cruel at the bar but I know they really loved us. They had no choice in the matter if you think about it.

http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...ns/mpangel.gif The Victor B1a(K)

We had just one of these beasts on 214, XH 667. It was notorious for the variety of snags it came up with, one round the world ranger subsequently being dubbed "Round the World in 80 delays". Its best trick was losing its starboard hose on the RAF Germany towline one night - the thing just trailed normally and kept on going. It was subsequently found in gardens on the outskirts of Bremen - but imagine the havoc caused by a 60' steel-reinforced hose scything through a crowded street at several hundred knots had they not been so lucky!

We had Tanker Trash nav bag name tags made up, which were carried with pride. I've still got mine somewhere. Somewhat politer than the version dmussen quotes!

Yes, XH667 or Sicky, Sicky Seven as it was often called was actually a Victor B1A[K2P] used mainly for IRT's and the like. 214 was the only squadron that had a mixture of Mk1's and 1A's as we got the leftovers from 55/57. The B1A[K2P] meant it was the bomber with a pod on each wing and no centerline hose.

As far as performance was concerned, the figures, for a long time, were related to 11000 lb per engine on take-off. It was found that, because of Fred's poor engine intake design, the engines only gave 7000 lb on take-off and the new ODM moved the runway end a bit more comfortably away.

AF

Quote:

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The airborne deterrent was trialled for two weeks in July 62 as Trial 448 and in spite of picking mid-summer the weather caused quite a few problems but I think the main reason it was dropped was the expense. As well as the fuel used there was a considerable amount dumped in order to get the Valiant tanker back on the ground to be ready for the next refuel with limited tanker availability.

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I was a Cpl/Tech Radar Fitter on 214 Sqdn that carried out the tanker side of the trial. What you referred to as ‘limited tanker availability’ is an understatement of immense proportions.

We were fast running out of serviceable tanker a/c. We were working 3 shifts for about 14 days and I think, flying 3 tankers a shift. The 1st week wasn't too bad, but the cumulative snag rate made the 2nd week a very difficult time, with the last 2 or 3 days being a real struggle to get a/c ready to meet the take-off deadlines. We ended the 2-week period with 10 very tired a/c, many of them having been ‘Xmas Tree’d’ to maintain other a/c and the Sqdn personnel weren’t in a much better state.

There was no way that such a routine could have been maintained for any extended period by a single Sqdn of Valiant’s, with the normal establishment of ground crew.

We of course dropped our normal routine for this period, no training of receiver crews, no ferrying of fighters anywhere. This was dedicated exercise just to keep one Vulcan in the air.

A Great Reference Book
 

Jackonicko,
Handley Page Victor
The Cresent winged Bomber

Authors :- Phil Butler & Tony Buttler

cx. out Ianallenpublishing.com

If you're interested i could scan my howgozit from my last victor k2 flight with 55Sqn. It's still got the chinagraph scribbles on it.
I couldn't bear to rub them off.....

In fact you could have the entire Nav Bag - oh no maybe I'm not quite ready for that yet.

Give me a mo' and I'll scan it and upload it. I just need to be sure that somebody won't retrospectively take away my B Cat again because of their bitterness at getting old and being a navigator and having a daft moustache - Oh and my appalling fuel planning.

Not that I'm bitter obviously.

So do ya want it?

Alright you convinced me:

SCAN0048 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!