Vulcan Aircraft - Armaments included twenty-one 454 kg of unguided bombs, a Blue Danube nuclear gravity bomb, a Violet Club 400 kt nuclear gravity bomb, and a U.S. Mark 5 nuclear gravity bomb supplied under Project E, and Yellow Sun Mk.
1,400 kt nuclear gravity bomb, a Yellow Sun Mk.2 1.1 Mt thermonuclear gravity bomb, a Red Beard nuclear gravity bomb, and a WE.177B parachute-retarded nuclear gravity bomb. Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. col. Braxton "Brick" Eisel is the author of numerous aviation articles as well as the books 417th Night Fighter Squadron in World War II and Magnum!
Vulcan Aircraft
The Wild Weasels in Desert Storm. Further reading: Avro Vulcan, by Robert Jackson; The Vulcan B.Mk2 From a Different Angle, by Craig Bulman; and Vulcan Units of the Cold War, by Andrew Brookes. For more on the last flying Vulcan, see vulcantothesky.org
The Downsides
In a series of attacks — as much a political statement as a militarily significant move — the Black Buck raids struck radar and communication sites as well as the Port Stanley airfield, where the Argentine air force based some of its fixed-wing ground attack aircraft.
The extremely long-distance raids required 11 Victor tankers to refuel just one Vulcan bomber, but given that it was an eight-hour flight to the Falklands, this complex plan was the only option. Thanks to brave and ingenious crews, the nearly 8,000-mile round-trip raids were successful, and no aircraft were lost.
More importantly, the damage one Vulcan inflicted in the middle of Port Stanley's runway forced Argentine jets to attack the British task force from bases on the mainland, with the consequent disadvantages of operating at maximum range.
The premise of the 1965 James Bond film “Thunderball” might seem far-fetched, but the starring plane played a very real role in the Royal Air Force during its more than quarter-century of operational service. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Avro Vulcan, which was designed at the height of the Cold War as a nuclear deterrent, is that in the only conflict in which the "Tin Triangle" saw service, it carried conventional weapons.
Forging The Vulcan
Britain's triumvirate of bombers came to be called the V-Force. It was the UK equivalent of America's SAC while it operated. At its peak in 1962, the V-Force had 22 operational squadrons. A portion of each squadron, sometimes as many as four aircraft, sat on nuclear-armed alert at RAF bases, waiting for an order that no one wanted to hear.
"At the critical moment, the AEO transmitted in a lazy drawl, 'No, Claude, I've got it.' We weaved merrily on our way while the Sea Vixens each broke off, thinking the other was administering the coup de grâce.
" Reeve remembered the transition: "We went low-level, which was fun, but the aircraft was never designed for this, and she was out of her element. Lots of basic things were now wrong, and there was never enough money to put them right.”
For example, the lack of ejection seats for the rear crew was never remedied. The Martin-Baker Company developed a system that could have been retrofitted to the Vulcan, but the RAF decided against installing it, anticipating that the delta-wing bomber would be in service only a few more years.
Testing The Vulcan
New bomber designs on the drawing board would correct the problem, so why bother? They never imagined that all those new projects would be cancelled, leaving the Vulcan to soldier on alone. Roy Brocklebank, a long-serving nav-radar, shared a “revealing” anecdote about the jet's cramped interior: “To take a pee, the pilots had to unstrap from their parachute and 'bang' seat, fiddle around under g-pants,
fish inside long johns and underwear and extract one's equipment. Then, in a sitting position, open the chrome top of the pee-tube, and right next to the other pilot, let fly. After checking, of course, that the pee-tube was plugged in tightly at the base of the cockpit.
For the rear crew, at least we could stand up.” In the Vulcan as well as the other two V bombers, only the pilots' positions were ever fitted with ejection seats. The remaining three Vulcan crew members, who sat about three feet behind the pilots' seats facing aft, were supposed to bail out via the same nose hatch that they used to enter the bomber.
Confidence in the Vulcan's invulnerability at high altitudes declined over time, however. The downing of CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers' Lockheed U-2 by a Soviet SAM, from an altitude more than 20,000 feet higher than the Vulcan's ceiling, came as a rude shock.
Flying High
RAF tacticians brought the Vulcan down from the stratosphere to the deck after that, and crew training changed accordingly. "In the dispersal, it was slammed to a halt near, but usually not in, the assigned parking bay.
The RAF police security guard simply let the crew through, no time for the SAC-style indoctrination identification protocol. The policeman then parked the car. One time the crew drove to its assigned parking bay, but the spot was already filled by a large fire extinguisher.
Both car and extinguisher were write-offs, but we made the alert time. In January 1947, the British Air Ministry took the first step toward developing the Vulcan when it directed the Ministry of Supply to issue specification B.35/46 for an aircraft weighing no more than 100,000 pounds and capable of carrying a 10,000-pound bombload for
3,350 nautical miles while cruising at 50,000 feet at 500 knots. Since the RAF's primary bombers at the time were the piston-engine Avro Lancaster and its descendant, the Lincoln, that was a pretty tall order. Three of the seven companies that submitted proposals for the new bomber received the go-ahead to develop prototypes: Vickers, Handley Page and A.V.
Potential Threats
Roe (Avro). A.V. Roe and Company put forth the third and most radical of the jet bomber designs. Using newly acquired research from the Germans, Avro's designers took an unusual approach. High-speed operations required a sweptwing design, but the desired specs for wing loading translated into a prohibitively long and structurally complex wing.
The designers eventually hit upon the idea of increasing wing area by filling in the area between the trailing edge of the swept wings and the fuselage. This design soon became a flying wing, eliminating the need for a conventional tail.
Control surfaces in the wing's trailing edge, called elevons, served as both elevators and ailerons. Thus the Type 698 was born, soon to be christened the Vulcan. As the 707 tests progressed, initial construction continued on the Vulcan prototype.
The first one was rolled out in August 1952. Serial number VX770 was far from an operational bomber, but it did yeoman service as an aerodynamic demonstrator, flying low- and high-speed tests plus high-altitude and handling-quality checks.
The Falkland Islands War
Initially fitted with one pilot's seat, towards the end of the year this first Vulcan had a second pilot's ejection seat crammed into it. The resulting extremely cramped flight deck would be a constant complaint of Vulcan crews.
Throughout the Vulcan's career, it was always supposed to be replaced by something better and newer. It never was. Fortunately, it also was never called upon to carry out its doomsday mission, but it did see combat long after its designers would have consigned it to a museum.
The last British Vulcan bomber flew its final flight on October 28, 2015. You can see a video here. The Avro Vulcan was designed to deliver one 10,000-pound bomb anywhere in the globe. The Valiant, the Victor, and the Vulcan, collectively known as the V-bombers, were designed to deliver nuclear warheads during the cold war.
This chilling prospect was fortunately never realized. The aircraft was certainly years ahead of its time in design, having been created by the architect of the Lancaster bomber. The huge delta wing design makes this aircraft truly iconic.
‘He Never Got Close’
The American B-52 and the Russian propeller-driven TU-95 were produced at the same time and for the same purpose. Pilots reported that the Vulcan flew like a fighter. Given the Vulcan's radical design, Avro opted to build several single-seat concept demonstrators, dubbed the Type 707, which used a single turbojet and as many off-the-shelf components as possible to reduce costs.
For example, they used the nosewheel and cockpit canopy from the Gloster Meteor fighter. Completed in 1949, the first 707 flew well with no real vices save one: At high speeds, the wing's straight leading edge caused an alarming vibration.
Designers added a "kink" to the outboard third of the wing, curing the problem. The kink would also be used on the full-size production Vulcan. When the aircraft was first envisioned, its 50,000-foot-plus ceiling was thought to be the perfect defense against Soviet interceptors.
"The Vulcan was a superb aircraft and weapons system for the late 1950s and 1960s," Reeve pointed out. "It could fly above the heights that Soviet aircraft could reach. We expected to be at about 54,000, and the MiG-19 stopped well before that.
Front Door
The addition of goodish ECM also helped, and what the kit lacked in subtlety — no range gates stealing for us [a method of tricking the search radar via subtle desensitizing of the radar's receiver], just noise jamming — it made up for in sheer electrical
power output. We could fry target radars.” "During QRA [quick reaction alert]," Brocklebank remembered, "during the day we studied our wartime targets, or we might be preparing for an overseas deployment or a training sortie after release from alert.
Or we might just be at the squadron waiting. We played hours upon hours of uckers, Risk or cards. "Another incident occurred when our AEO's wife was pregnant. He couldn't sleep, so he left the caravan and went into the ops block to shower.
Naturally, we got the alarm and reacted but could not find the AEO. At the aircraft, we grabbed the startled crew chief and sat him in the AEO's seat. If it had been an actual launch, he’d have gotten a crash course in wartime SOPs!”
The Crew
"On another flight, again in the Mediterranean, we were caught between two Fleet Air Arm Sea Vixen fighters. They had us sandwiched between them on radar and would take turns closing in, for as we approached one, the other would fly closer to our tail.
If we turned into the second chapter, the first would close. It was only a matter of time until they were close enough to employ [simulated] weapons at us. Fortunately for us, their R/T was crap.
Instead of call signs, they used each other's first names. As we weaved towards them, they casually swapped eyeball and shooter roles back and forth. Once they had wormed their way into their seats, the pilots used fighter-type joysticks to maneuver the surprisingly nimble aircraft.
The throttles for the B.2 model's four Rolls-Royce Olympus201 (later 301) turbojets were located on a pedestal between the two pilots. Despite the B.2's huge wingspan of more than 100 feet, the Vulcan was often rolled at airshows, a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.
Unfortunately, the Victor's thin wing could not take the sustained pounding inherent in flying fast and low. After several aircraft and crews were lost due to structural failures, Victors were converted to aerial tankers, a role they continued into the 1990s.
However, the Soviet Union's increasingly effective air defense system, particularly its high-flying surface-to-air missile capability, forced a change in tactics so that 1960s aircrews would have a reasonable chance of hitting their targets. Instead of flying at high altitude, RAF bombers—like their American counterpart in Strategic Air Command, the Boeing B-52—were switched to low-level, high-speed ingress routes.
The theory was that if the Soviets could not see the bombers on radar, then no matter how good the SAMs were, the bombers could get through. The B.1 is the initial production version of the Avro Vulcan.
The B.1A featured an Electronic Countermeasures (ECM) system, the B.2 had larger and thinner wings and powered by Olympus 201-202 engines. Nine B.2 were also converted to MRR (Maritime Radar Reconnaissance) versions while six were converted for air-to-air refueling.
"The intercept pattern continued until we assessed the fighter had to be close-ish. Then our AEO transmitted, 'Judy, Judy' [a call from a fighter to a GCI controller that means 'I've got it']. Naturally, the controller is expecting this call, so he shuts up.
The fighter jock would normally make the call, and he wasn't expecting it. In the confusion, we pressed in. By the time they'd sorted themselves out, the fighter was bingo fuel and had to either land or face a ditching.
"As strong as the Vulcan's delta wing was," Reeve continued, "there were limits. As a result, we could only do about 30 minutes over land at low level, and low level for us was 500 feet.
Even worse, being designed for high level, where the IAS [indicated airspeed] is low, the Vulcan had a low IAS limit, and we flew low level at 240 knots. Basic training aircraft with low-hours solo students would overtake us.
For war we flew 375 knots with a one-off speed of 415 knots, which was the 'guesstimated' speed a Vulcan was doing when it broke up at an air display. The Avro Vulcan was designed by Avro as a high-altitude strategic bomber powered by jet engines.
It was in service with the Royal Air Force from 1956 to 1984. It first flew in August 1952, was introduced in September 1956, and was retired with the RAF in 1984. The Vulcan was produced until 1965 with a total number of 136 aircraft built including
prototypes. As the bomb bay doors open you will see the names of contributors to the effort to keep the Vulcan flying, including that of the author of this article (if you can read really quickly).
Ed. John Reeve, an RAF Vulcan pilot with many hours in the cockpit, recalled: "At high altitude, it was a delight to fly. She needed strange handling techniques—lots of rudder and very little aileron—but with a low wing loading she could outturn all the current UK fighters if you could determine when to turn by using our radar threat receivers.”
Both Reeve and Brocklebank related stories about simulated bomber-versus-fighter encounters in which Vulcan crews relied on ingenuity to defeat the hunter. Brocklebank recalled two such incidents: “We were flying out of RAF Akroteri [on Cyprus]. We were to go to low level and try to simulate an attack on the base, and the [English Electric] Lightnings were to stop us.
We ran in at low level from the Cairo FIR [flight identification region] and heard a threat call being made to the patrolling fighter on the intercept frequency. We turned. The target turned according to the GCI [ground controlled intercept] controller.
He had spotted us on his radar and was directing the fighter to us. "Even though we knew an alert would be called during our QRA, we still had to attend to ordinary functions like showering and the like.
It was not that uncommon to see a naked copilot racing down the corridor, holding a flying suit and covered in soapsuds. A Valiant dropped the first British-designed atomic bomb in a 1956 test. Valiants also saw action that same year as conventionally armed bombers during the Suez Crisis, striking Egyptian airfields.
By 1960, however, the Valiant was largely obsolete as a bomber, although it served as a tanker until 1965. "When I joined the V-Force in the 1960s," Reeve said, "the red line on our charts was solid down the Baltic, but at least it was a thin line.
The last look I had during the 1980s, it looked like somebody had had a nosebleed over the East German and Baltic coastlines. Whatever else the V-Force was, it was a marvelous economic weapon against the Soviet Union, because all of this was largely for our benefit;
bombers coming from the U.S. would come over the Pole, not the Baltic.
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