Nice one :ok:

Well, that was a fun evening last night at the VC10 farewell dinner. What a gathering - crammed to the bulkheads, it was! So many familiar faces from times past, almost too many to say hello again to. I suspect that the quantity of wine, port and beer consumed must have surprised the venue proprietors a bit. :ok: Some well known names were in tatters before the guest of honour even delivered his speech.

Over £8000 raised for the RAF Benevolent fund, from the after-dinner auction of VC10-related items. A retired training skipper drew cheers and admiration for his very determined bids to secure a rather nicely mounted VC10 Captain's control yoke, complete with Vickers badge mounted on the centre pivot point. ;)

Well done to all who planned and executed the Op Order for the evening - a worthwhile gathering that will be remembered for a very long time ........ :D :D :D

[Coff, sorry, I managed to delete my post ..... trying again ...... must have been a very good night, ha ha]

Nice one :ok: :D

Rolls Royce offered the IAE V2500 in about 1986 - the MoD said no because the VC10 was due to retire in 2000...........to be replaced by FSTA

Wasn't the V2500 one not the full engine but the cores minus the fan, if memory serves me correctly and would have been three in a triangular layout either side ?

In the history of the VC10, 101 though, were just a dribble in a very big puddle, a lot had gone before :ok:;)


.

It was my understanding that it was 4 x V2500 - which were each rated at about 25,000Lb of thrust, giving a useful 10,000Lb thrust increase over the Conways and a projected minimum 30% fuel saving.

The V2500 is a little bit bigger than a Conway but not hugely so (it's used on the A320, for example) - I believe that the engine hangers would have had to be re-worked but that it would have been a reasonably straightforward swap (no worse than the CFM56 being fitted to the 707/KC135/E3).

And they would have paid for themselves many times over in fuel savings, who knows they might have still been in service.

Must admit I also thought a pair of RB211's would have been efficient.

2 RB211s would have been fine except that they could have posed problems on oceanic flights if the RAF was following ETOPS rules in the same way as civilian operators. 4 engines were less limiting

Why would the Military need, or have any obligation to follow civilian
ETOPS rules :confused:



They certainly didn't follow any for noise :eek:

As an instructor in the RAF VC10 sim we had to similate the procedure for crew activity prior to ditching.
To save time we wrote a programme which meant the crew would leave Brize for Gander/Goose Bay (I forget). After many faults, during start and T.O which we would tick-off the training sheet, we would re-position the crew half-way across the Atlantic close to a weather ship. The briefing was we would cause numerous engine failures where they would apply the appropriate drills, so we could tick them as complete, then we would leave the crew with only one engine and thus they would carry out the flight side of a ditching drill.
On one occasion this crew were descending on one engine at full power and the Air Eng was dumping fuel as per....when the Capt. said "Stop dumping!".
The VC10 had levelled out at full power! A quick check of the fuel indicated they could still fly and they then established they could make it to the coast of Ireland with the prevailing wind.
As instructors we were flummoxed and, as there was another training session later, we needed get this one finished so we reversed the tailwind :E
However, after establishing that the computer and the condition were accurate we reviewed our training to include the possibility of flying on one engine to a better location to land or ditch.
Amazing Aircraft.

Because only an idiot would ignore them!

We basically followed civilian rules across the board (in peacetime transport ops) including noise abatement procedures

VC10 Commemorative Polo Shirts
 

For anyone who's interested, the folks on the VC10derness forum have organised a second run of commemorative polo shirts. Orders need to be placed and paid for by 12th October.

Details here: A Little VC10derness ? View topic - VC10 Tribute Shirts - NEW ORDER!!

I would have ordered one, but bank transfers are a pain in the butt to do.

Thanks for that :D:D

I'm living in the Middle East and the charges will be the same for me whether I sent £1 or £100 so I'd be happy for you to send me money via Paypal that I can then pass on in a transfer.

VC10 airfix kit - request for relaunch
 

We all know that the Airfix VC10 K2 model has been out of production for some time but I would imagine that, with the retirement of the aeroplane, there would be quite a bit of interest in seeing it on the market again.

Airfix have a contact form allowing you to get in touch to make product suggestions. Could I urge you all to use it to ask Airfix to do the decent thing and relaunch the kit? There's nothing to lose and it costs nothing

thanks

Scale Plastic Model Kits by Airfix - Send us an enquiry

PM me an address to send some monies for a shirt :)

Filled out the enquiry too.

Message sent

Why on earth should anyone want a K2? I would like a shiny one :cool: