Handley Page Victor dimensions sought

Firstly apologies if this has already been covered ad nauseum (I suspect it may have been 😮 ). I have searched the forum but not found what I was looking for so here goes.

I wondered if anyone had the dimensions of the Victor’s bomb bay? I was day dreaming whether if the UK had kept the Victor around, could it have become a useful stand-off weapons carrier a la B-52. A weapons load of Storm Shadows, JDAM-ER or something similar perhaps. I know that the Victor had a larger bay than the Vulcan, but have not found any actual dimensions mentioned anywhere. Could it accomodate a rotary launcher for example (6 or 8 Storm Shadows). There is the famous image of a Victor dropping 35 1,000Ib bombs, but this is not a ‘real’ picture as it has been altered so that all the falliing bombs are in shot. Consequently it is not possible to work out rough dimensions based on the known length of the bomb itself.

Also what was the low-level performance like. I know they were not designed for that flight regime and that they suffered from fatigue problems but I would like to know what their performance actually was. I suspect it would have been better than the B-52 but well below modern types. Comparable to the Skywarrior perhaps?

I remember reading somewhere that the reason the Victor was withdrawn from bomber service was less to do with performance problems and more to do with the need to have a tanker when the Valiant started to fall to pieces. With its larger capacity it made a better tanker than the Vulcan would have. The author (sorry don’t recall who this was) made the point that the long wings of the Victor acted as ‘giant shock absorbers’ and flexed with the gusts, like some enormous gust alliviation device. it gave its crews a far more comfortable ride than the Vulcan. I suspect that this would not have done much for their fatigue life though!

With new weapons, modern more efficient engines and digital avionics the ‘Victor-NG’ could be relevant to todays military needs? The Chinese are still using (developing – H-6K) the comparable Badger after all.

🙂