Victor U/C
 

Whilst idling around the Cosford museum's Victor I noticed the bay immediately forward of the nosewheel well was open. Inside was another pair of legs with single wheels apparently each mounted to swing outboard. Whilst I can guess at their purpose I can't find any documentary reference to them or any photos. So, please folks, what are they?

No idea, all I could think of is the DC10 had an extra bogie for when heavy, I wonder if it was for when it was bombed up? or Spare wheels?

Where's TTN when you need him!

CG

I'm pretty sure that BS on Victors was loaded using a special pit. I'd have thought having a bucket loaded with no weight on ground might be considered a hazard.

Not a hope, 2 mains and a tail wheel jack and up 39 ins. a penny width at a time. Push in the missile, winch it up, carry out post loads and lower the jacks. There were bomb bay side fairings that could be removed to do the job without jacking but they had dozens of screws and dzus fasteners which took hours to re align and refit, much easier to jack up. Every pan at Wittering had 2 mains and a tail jack ready for use.

That's where spare wheels are stowed when doing a "Lone Ranger" sortie.
Just forward on the belly there is a square hatch about 4 feet square where a fly-away pack (FAP) would be loaded

XL189, what was your FAP capacity or just weight of kit?

The Vulcan had to use panniers, a 750lb which could fit between the bomb bay tanks or a 4,000lb pannier, used and misused on many rangers.

Perhaps the strangest when it was manhandled to the Maltese Bacon Factory.

NutLoose:chimney sweep child.
The Sycamore had something between the engine & rotor which it wasn't given for pilots to know about,but required similar stature.On 1563 Flight Nicosia during autumn 1963 we had on strength a fitter who answered to "Gnome." One night the troops came and woke me; Please Sir,can you come in and disconnect the (whatever) -- Gnome's off sick and no one else can get in. So off I went,crawled into the tubular frame that supports the MRG and disconnected either the rotor shaft or the centrifugal clutch. "Thanks Sir,we'll run you back." Thus demonstrating that not all officers,while decorative are fairly useless!

Here, but not going to be any use as I haven't got a flipping clue :confused: Was only ever on Mk 1s anyway, so maybe this just applies to the Mk 2s?

Loading ECM Cans ( if it was a MK2). Victors had to be jacked up to load a BS missile. a real pain at the start of an exercise. More than once it was Jack up- load Missile - Jack down - Missile u/s -Jack up and so it went on.

H Peacok - how true. I was there for 6mths in 1985 and had a great time!

The K2s had 2 spare main wheels and two spare nose wheels in a forward bay that used to house some ECM gear in it's bomber days. They were on an axle which was winched up into the bay from a single hoist wire. The jack was kept in the compartment at the back of the fuselage usually known as Annie's hatch. Who Annie was I have no idea. Each main wheel drum had two tyres, so it may have looked like there were four main wheels.

Wasn't that the position of the "Window Dispenser" on the B1 and B1As.

Thanks, Dan Winterland, all is revealed!! ^

Me neither. This compartment was always known as Annie's hatch as you say, for some reason lost in the mists of time. I'm on a Facebook group which has a lot of Victor crew chiefs and other groundcrew on it. I think I'll ask the question there and see if anybody knows.

Had a go on Facebook about the above and had loads of replies from sundry crew chiefs, riggers, sooties etc, plus a few aircrew. Quite surprised how many had never heard the term, particularly those from the latter days of the K2s, by which time the nickname seems to have fallen into disuse. A lot on the other hand said they always knew it as Annie's hatch.

Only one problem - nobody had a clue who Annie was!