Jamie

104 CHANNEL 4

Falklands

albob

bit a of a late "heads up"

on channel 4 now - the story of the Vulcan "black buck" raid on the Falkkands raid in 1982. Probably a repeat but interesting neverthless................

Hope Leslie is watching !!

albob

B*GGER - u beat me to it !!!

ChrisB

I've previously read Vulcan 607 by Roland White - very interesting to see the crew members speaking.

acstua

iTrader: (1)

was very good , ta for the heads up

tarmac terror

iTrader: (2)

just finished watching that - simply awesome - was thinking of Les as I watched.

Jaybird-UK

Just watching it now, the refuelling alone was mental!

BOB.T

I went to a talk at Elvington about this, Martin Withers was there among others. Hearing about it first hand and unedited was great!

Leslie

It was a well produced programme. Yes I did watch it, if my crew had not been posted just beforehand we would have been part of that operation.

Les

Leslie

Thanks Jamie,much appreciated.

I did watch it anyway and enjoyed it. Very well produced.

Les

Jamie

Yeah it was great I never knew it took so many fuel tankers to refuel them

Jamie

Oh and after doing some research last night found out one of the vulcans that had to divert to brazil was only released if they could keep one of it's bombs/missiles.most were dumped into the sea and the mission intel was lobbed out of the hatch.

Leslie

The trick was that they had to have tankers to refuel the tankers so that they could go far enough south to refuel the Vulcan. That was why they needed so many. It was an unbelievably complicated arrangement. Never been done before.

Les

Bonehead

I've actually got some of the cockpit dials out of the last Victor that refuelled the Vulcan.

My Dad's old royal Engineer unit was bassed at Raf Waddo and they were tasked with building a plinth for that Victor.
It had been retired from active service in the 90's and Raf Waddo wanted it as a second gate guard behind XM607's original position.
The plinth was built and the Victor was put into place but some pen pusher got wind of there being two gate guards and said one needed to be got rid of so the Victor was scrapped and my Dad rescued some cockpit dials for me!

I've still got them and one of them, an undercarriage locked light thingy, is on me desk as i type

Really enjoyed the programme btw!

ChrisB

That was a good watch. I'd recommend the book (Vulcan 607) if people want to read more.

hodgy0_2

Roy Evans, the chief designer of the MK2 Vulcan died this month, aged 94

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...ewans-obituary

Paucatuman

I'll second that - this is a fantastic book that it is very hard to put down. This is high praise from me because I don't really do books except perhaps an interesting autobiog, maybe one every two years.

Leslie

There is quite a bit more to that story which I can't repeat. It was certainly a very difficult situation for the captain and the crew of course.

Les

Leslie

I went to Waddo on a visit to my old station some years ago and 607 was parked in the middle of the airfield somewhere and it was quite badly corroded, you could see holes in the flaps! They eventually got it refurbished and it was moved to near the main road looking spick and span. It is a pity that aircraft do suffer from corrosion it they are left out in the rain. Interesting to see the extra mounting points under the wings which were added for the Harm missiles in the original hard points for the Skybolt which was cancelled by the Americans.

I have got an altimeter in full working order on my desk as well!

Les

tony de wonderful

I view the raids as part of politicking by the RAF. They were not very effective as an act of war though, although they were quite an achievement given the technology available.

They basically put one hole in the runway which was rapidly filled in.

BOB.T

Yeah but it made the Argies cack their pants and move their fast jets, which was kinda the point

Jamie

XM597?

andys

XM597 is the only other Black Buck veteran and flew two missions, hence the two missile markings on the side of the fuselage. XM597 entered service with 12 Squadron on the 27th of August 1963 and then served with 35, 50, 9, 101 and 35 Squadrons. Deployed in the Falklands in the suppression of enemy air defences role, XM597 set the record in Black Buck 5 for the longest mission in the history of air warfare, a record that remained until a B-52 broke it during the Gulf war in 1991, after a total flight time of precisely 16 hours. XM597 again made the headlines in Black Buck 6 when, due to a fractured in-flight refuelling probe, it was diverted to Rio de Janeiro. On the final rendezvous with a Victor tanker XM597's refuelling probe snapped off and the crew were forced to divert. There were no pre-arranged or recognised diversions and the crew's brief was to ditch the aircraft should the final refuelling fail. Reluctant to ditch XM597 in the South Atlantic the crew elected to climb to 43,000 ft for best range/endurance performance and headed west towards South America and Brazil. Before entering Brazilian airspace the un-used Shrikes had to be jettisoned to prevent any potential embarrassment to the British and Brazilian authorities. After de-pressurizing at 43,000 ft and jettisoning secret documents and film through the crew entrance door, XM597 descended to around 20,000 ft whilst evading a pair of Brazilian F-5 fighter aircraft which had been scrambled to intercept it. With insufficient fuel for a procedural instrument approach into Rio's Galeao International Airport, XM597 was flown to the overhead where it commenced a spiral descent and visual approach. The aircraft was landed with only a few hundred pounds of fuel remaining in the tanks. After seven days internment, the crew was under 'open arrest' (but well treated) on the military side of the airport, the aircraft and crew were released to prevent further embarrassment to Brazil and Britain. After returning from Ascension Island, XM597 was allocated to 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron in July 1982 and 50 Squadron in December 1982 to be converted to a B(K).2. XM597 was acquired by the Scottish Museum of Flight when 50 Squadron disbanded on 31st March 1984 and it flew into East Fortune in April 1984.

Dr Hu

^^^^^ wow...cool stuff

boomer

Looks like more info and pictures are at Avro Vulcan

mb

ScoobyWon't

I was at Little Waddington (Bracebridge Heath) on Sunday, visiting the in-laws. I mentioned the programme was on to the FIL, as we were talking about the book, mentioned above.

He was at Ascension, but wouldn't say doing what. I think he misses being on 51 sq. as he always glances over when we pass Waddington. He won't say what he did there. That'll go to his grave with him, no doubt.

Waddington looked so quiet as we drove by.

Bonehead

BBH called Little Waddington! that's a good one!

Waddington is very very quiet these days. The E3's occaisonally potter about and you sometimes get a trainer in and out but there doesn't seem to be many Typhoons about these days.
There was an Apache Longbow in on Monday, but v v quiet all in all these days.

Sad times

Steve vRS

I bought the Vulcan 607 book last night for my Kindle. I've read 30% of it and it is excellent!

I bet sales of the book rocketed after Sunday.

Steve

Leslie

597 was already a Vulcan B Mk2 and was fitted with the later powerful 300 series engines. A good many of the Mk2 Vulcans had the earlier engines. There was not a very big difference in the general performance. The later 300 series engines had a total thrust of 80,000 lbs which was 12,000 lbs more than the earlier engined versions. I am uncertain what you mean by later modification to 597 which you mention. I do have that one in my logbook.

There was a bit more involved in the diversion to Rio as well, the circumstances were indeed difficult but it all turned out alright in the end luckily.

Les

Dr Hu

Do I take it that they made an 'unannounced' approach into Rio, did a circuit & landed on the runway..... lol respect - I bet the Brazilians thought they were under attack seeing a foofing great vulcan buzz the tower unnanounced.... hahahahaha