In that case, Cockney Geezer, my humblest apols - seems like I was indeed given bad gen regarding the jet in Akro...

About 411's Posts
 

If . . . IF 411's intention is to wind you boys up - then he's been an unparalleled success. I don't know about a little dip on the float, you've taken bites out of his whole bloody boat . . .

Undeniably, the aircraft was badly modded, when to fill all the belly fuel tanks would exceed the bending moments of the aircraft. All that useful baggage hold wasted.

The story of how the probes were fitted too shows remarkable naivety. Glad they took the bloody noisy things off. Marshall's template rigged on Door 1L was not the best job in the world - communication would have helped (but in fairness, that is in hindsight).

Any aircraft capable of refuelling a trimotor in flight, could easily take on its task. Ergo, that was not really well thought out - unless you wanted to offload 10 Victors into the bloody thing. More naivety.

Just because you don't like him, doesn't mean everything 411 says is wrong. But YOU are the boys getting all wound up.

If he's so crass, then ignore his posts . . . duh!

I thought the purpose of the TriStar receiver capability was principally for Falklands emergency reinforcement as follows:

Formation of 4x FJs, 1x TriStar and 1x VC10 launch from ASI. VC10 refuels FJs (twice?) and then dumps rest of its remaining offload into the TriStar before turning back. TriStar then has enough fuel to get the the rest of the formation to MPA.

To update the scenario, 2 x FSTAs will have 20T more fuel available than 1 TriStar plus one VC10, and a considerably lower burn.

DD,

Using your logic, in the days when we still had them...

"...any aircraft capable of refuelling a Victor in flight, could easily take on its task....".

Fortunately for us, in 1982 Victors were capable of being refuelled in flight.

Having that capacity for a Tristar offers flexibility, not naivety, for who knows what situation that people probably haven't even tried to imagine....

I think it was in Aug 1985, when the VC10K3 was relatively new, which found us on task somewhere over the North Sea on the way to do some routine AAR. All of a sudden, Starfleet told us to turn back south to RV with a Victor, which had been scrambled to support a QRA intercept, the plan being to top him up before he headed north.

The captain was ex-Victors, so I asked him what the max fuel of a Victor was. I think it was around 58 tonnes; we were already hundreds of miles north of the Victor and still had considerably more fuel on board than he could possibly carry.

So we then suggested to Starfleet that a better solution would be that we should head north to the QRA support task and that the rubber-suited chaps in their ancient bent-wing ex-nuclear bomber should take our routine AARA task. Of course we had the 'codes' and 'red book' on board (as we always did in those days), so comms wouldn't be a problem. They agreed to the idea, so off we went to nab 1 x Bear B and 1 x Bear C in the supreme comfort of a VC10K3 (navigators might disagree), landing after a 5 hr trip.

"Why didn't they think of that?", I asked the Captain. "Because they're ground-pounders and we're tanker aircrew" was his reply....:\

If in fact the RAF TriStars were "grounded" I wonder how they managed to put over 1050 cycles and 3200 hours in the final six months of 2010?

Somebody do the maths ('math'?) for him...

I was on the squadron in 1990 and know what the 'theory' was. The TriStar prodding wasn't really followed up as it was impractical.

Perhaps I wasn't clear. The only practical tanker for a TriStar, was deemed to be another one (capacity), ergo, any aircraft that could refuel the aircraft could do its task. I knew what I meant, sorry if it wasn't clear.

I won't get drawn into this lot as it amounts to the redistribution of air at 37 Celsius and doesn't serve any purpose.

But for God's sake stop responding to 411, it's tedious.

Yes, I'm a volunteer and now I'm off somewhere else. Bye chaps, I might be some time . . .

Reported today in the Cambridge News, redundancies at Marshalls as the MOD have cancelled the Tristar cockpit upgrade "without warning"

I would have thought that being so far behind schedule that there was no chance of completing the contract before the planes went out of service should have given Marshalls a clue that a phone call might be on its way.

Cambridge News | Latest News Headlines From Cambridge City & Cambridgeshire | National News By Cambridge News | 65 jobs to go at Marshall

The Tab News must be rather behind the times - I heard about this about 4 months ago.


It seems that poor old ZD949 will be subjected to the 'MRA4 treatment'....:uhoh:

brilliant to see marshalls have kept there head in the sand even more than the military do!!! "without warning??????" Obviously mr marshall does not read the news, have cutbacks in the military budget been on the table for quite a long time, especially for projects that have overun!!! massivly overun

Bit like the MRA4 some of us out here never thought it would fly spooky! it never did

typical MOD procurement though

As with most of this military procurement/manufacture/repair/refurbish stuff, Marshalls had probably slipped a few notes someone's way in the expectant hope of seeing further in to the MoD crystal ball. Or perhaps they felt that their largesse might save them from losing business?

I'm editing a new book on the Victor and I need a lot of stories suitable for publishing from Victor aircrew Mk1s, Mk2s and K Mk2s. The book will be called The Victor Boys and match the recently issued Lightning Boys which is doing very well. The more photographs the better.If you are interested please let me know. I know I started life as a Vulcan man but i flew lots of K2s and they did a really superb job in the Falklands.

remember the SR2 ... please

SR2...

http://www.airrecce.co.uk/graphics/A...victor_400.jpg

TheVulcan

Just a query. Why have you posted your plans on a Tristar thread?

Would it not be better to start a new thread specific to the Victor?

Please understand, this post is not meant to be a criticism, just an observation.

Rgds

Yes, I only happened on this post by accident as its the first time I've looked at the Tristar thread. Suggest a new thread with a new name.

Great news about the book, will have to trawl through the log book and see if I can come up with a contribution

Dont forget the K1/K1a either!