PN:-

I was amused to see a Collins being retuned in the video from what appeared to be the BBC World Service. That gives some inkling of the gravity of the situation. It was a mainstay of the prolonged over-the-og transits in the Hercules. On the Hastings the sigs desk had a drawer in which he kept his segmented allotted crystals for the route. They enabled him to pass you the New York weather rather than Christmas Island's to which you were inbound. :E

The variable nature of HF radio Rx is well known and could be used to some advantage of course, "Unless advised to the contrary, intend to bypass A and proceed direct B", knowing that the propagation conditions gave you a good chance of a better nightstop at B. :ok:

The Vulcans did not get the Collins till 1965. What was being retuned was possibly the STR18.

Pity so many of the Victor 2 shots were of tankers, even the Victor 1 tankers were not in service then!Lot of good stuff though, brought back many memories.

The bulb from the G4B Compass worked just fine! But you had to make sure the Instrument bod didn't see you.

Well obviously I'm not a pilot, and we'd need one of our number who flew the Victor to confirm, but as far as I remember it was in fact pretty stable on the approach, and if properly trimmed would virtually land itself. Obviously it didn't have Autoland or anything like that - that was only found in much later aircraft.

If you come over the threshold at touchdown speed and chop the throttles all aeroplanes will land themselves.

Ian 16th,

The narrator says " Vulcan, Victor and Valiant V-bombers were armed" in the first set of shots of V bomber bases, around 1.30 in. So at least mentioned, and shown in some shots from 6.40 to 8.04.

Why didn't somebody tell me that when I was doing my PPL, Fareastdriver? Would have saved me no end of grief (and my spine would have been grateful) :(

Or doesn't it work with Cessnas? ;)

Some of our secrets were kept from the Navigators. How else would we have maintained our mystique and have them continue to worship the two winged master race? :E

There was a statement in there that the Victor could go supersonic.
Shurely not...?

I was informed by a reliable former Nav on Victors at Gaydon, that it was SOP on the delivery flight, to see if Mach 1 could be reached .

I know it's Wiki, but I first saw reference to this event sometime before even the ZX81 was marketed:

'On 1 June 1956, a production Victor XA917 flown by test pilot Johnny Allam inadvertently exceeded the speed of sound after Allam let the nose drop slightly at a higher power setting. Allam noticed a cockpit indication of Mach 1.1 and ground observers from Watford to Banbury reported hearing a sonic boom. The Victor maintained stability throughout the event. Aviation author Andrew Brookes has claimed that Allam broke the sound barrier knowingly to demonstrate the Victor's superiority to the earlier V-bombers. The Victor was the largest aircraft to have broken the sound barrier at that time'.

I was a Valiant tanker pilot on a Victor Bomber station, RAF Honington, during the Cuban Crisis. I was on leave and my entire planning was disrupted by the objects of my attentions panicking about WW III and rushing off to Trafalgar Square and demonstrating against something or other. This was despite my protestations that I, as a mighty V Force pilot, had not been recalled from leave.

From my remembered conversations with fellow co-pilots in the bar the Victor did have a tendency to be able to land itself at very light weights. However, this was frowned upon for the same reason that all pilots were banned from doing 'greasers' in the early sixties. A very light touchdown on a wet runway would lead to the wheels not rotating and the tyre treads being scalded forming lumps that would shorten the tyres life.

Inadvertent supersonic flight by the Victor, especially the Mk 2, is fairly well known.

The supersonic Victor question has been discussed here quite recently. Somebody pointed out that the machmeter was known to be inaccurate, and an indicated mach 1 might not necessarily be correct. Whatever the truth, you only have to look at a Victor (particularly a B1 before they started sticking bits on it), to see that was a very "slippery" aircraft, and mach 1 in a shallow dive was quite credible.

Can we all take a moment to thank one Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov - the First Officer onboard Soviet sub B-59 who was the lone voice that prevented the launch of a nuclear weapon.

That's how close we came.

Self Landing Victor
 

From Wiki but I also have it in a book at home somewhere. From what I recall, this characteristic was lost after modifications to the size of the fin.

"One unusual flight characteristic of the early Victor was its self-landing capability; once lined up with the runway, the aircraft would naturally flare as the wing entered into ground effect while the tail continued to sink, giving a cushioned landing without any command or intervention by the pilot."