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Mmm...must admit I did think 'really?' if it did what sort of <<redacted>> are allowed at the controls??
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And if you can't make it to the UK in the summer you can take a look here[^]
<Nomex suit on>The Victor looked a lot cooler</Nomex suit on>
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Jörgen Andersson wrote: Nomex suit on
You'll bally well need more than THAT!
veni bibi saltavi
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Well it did look 'cool' and served longer than any other V Bomber (alright as Petrol Station but...)
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Even as a tanker it was useless. It was too slow for the Vulcans and the later fast jets, and they had little to no rear visibility to know what the refuelling plane was doing or where it was.
veni bibi saltavi
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Point, they did however serve up 'til Gulf 1 as tankers I have seen a photo of two F18's tanking off one so it was doing some thing useful. I think there was a news story about one that was set up for fast taxi runs at Brunitng Thorpe getting air borne by 'accident'
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They had problems with the Tornado, the Victor's maximum airspeed was below the Tornado's stall speed. They fixed it by...
... flying the Victor in a downward parabola, reminiscent of the Vommit Commit, with the Tornado in tow.
veni bibi saltavi
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If memory serves when they flew Maggie & Dennis to the Falklands in a Herc they had all sorts of problems and had to do a similar thing. Today the VC10 has a similar problem with the Typhoon (one reason they are changing to Airbus tankers??)
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Rubbish. The Victor flew at M0.95. Any plane that stalled under Mach 1 would never get off the ground. Also the Victor could carry 48,000 pounds of ordnance as standard, with up to 70,000 overload, and could go slightly supersonic in a shallow dive.
The ex-chief aerodynamicist of Handley Page was one of my lecturers in the late 70's, so you can be sure I didn't get these facts off some stupid internet site.
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Nagy Vilmos wrote: It was too slow for the Vulcans
The top speed of the Vulcan was only 29 km/h higher than the Victor, I feel you are a bit picky here, Shirley they can let of the accelerator a tiniest bit while refuelling.
The Victor was better than the Vulcan in most areas until the RAF changed tactics and decided to do low level bombing instead of flying at max height.
Something the airframe of the Victor wasn't good enough for.
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I *may* be being unfair, though I doubt it, but I just think the Vulcan is a great plane. Unlike the Victor, she also fired in anger.
veni bibi saltavi
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The bombing of the Falkland islands in '82 must be one of the looniest missions ever. Need Brits to come up with something like that.
The tactical effect was small at the best, but strategically it was one of the most important missions ever.
When the Argentinians realized they could get bombed, they kept the majority of their air force at home.
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Get a copy of Vulcan 607, it is fascinating what they had to do. Apart from anything, the Vulcans were all but ready to be disbanded, they had no one who knew how to fly refuelling in one, the release mechanism wasn't suitable for multiple bombs and there was no real air-to-air on them.
veni bibi saltavi
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I did read a book about those missions many years ago, but I'm pretty sure it was another book.
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I'm with Nagy read Vulcan 607, only then the sheer lunacy of Black Buck is revealed (attempts to seal pressure seal on a window with sandwich wrappers). Roland White wrote it after the 25 year limit on secrets was lifted. It was a typical lash up op that the we Brits are famous for!
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Ok, it's on my wish list.
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The Vulcan was wonderful aircraft and would rings round the Victor, the Victor was a bomb hauler in the traditional heavy bomber mode, the Vulcan could out turn fighters at altitude, it was this that gave the Vulcan its longevity, it could do amazing things for such huge aircraft
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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To quote a member of the USAF it looks like it's going Mach 1 on the hard standing
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There's a great video somewhere on youtube, from the BBC in the 1980's, about the attack on the runway by the Vulcans.
It's amazing how many tankers they had to fly and then use flying tankers to refuel other flying tankers which would go on to refuel the Vulcans - all for one pass over the runway then heading back home.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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This is the 607 mission called Black Buck. Read the book it's fecking great. The pilot from BB1, Martin Whithers, is also one of the few pilots left who is allowed to fly XH558. He will most probably fly at least once this summer and I would bet good money he gets the last go before she retires.
veni bibi saltavi
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Upon hearing the lyrics "them not busy being born is busy dyin'" -It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) - Bob Dylan (5/7/65), I came to the conclusion that birth is a fatal affliction.
Usually, years are spent trying to treat it, but history has shown, without any success.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Was this the influence that the Shawnshank Redemption took for Morgan Freeman's speech: Get busy living or get busy dying?
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I think of that quote quite frequently.
Dave.
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