Victor at Waddington

re

I think they cleared up the af in time for the 1st airshow there – and what a fantastic show that was. Jaguars dive bombing the coaches, Avenger belting over head and then the Mosquito gracefully going overhead…

I remember XH669 sitting out on the airfield for a few years, It was written off 21/6/90 and was scrapped in 1995 with the cockpit section saved. It was the Victor that the probe snapped on in the Black buck mission which meant that the other Waddington Victor XL189 then had to fly on further than planned.

VX, would you be happy to see her in a semi cut up state? If so I’ll get images scanned and posted (it might be after Christmas now though)

C6

Hello Circus,
Yes please… I would be very interested to see the images. I remember the day she was being cut up, I was at Marham being shown around XL164 (Saucy Sal). I remember the visit well, it was towards the end of the Victors time in service, and there was a film crew at Marham filming the Victors.

Nice to see that 164’s cockpit survived… Is it still at Gatwick?

A quick forum search produces this:

XL189

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=47346&highlight=xl189

As someone that was living near Waddington until quite recently, let me correct you all.

XL189 was the gate guard and it was still in the old camo scheme when it was scrapped in 89, the airframe that arrived with an onboard fire was XH669 and it was painted in the Hemp colour scheme and after sometime in the hangers for investigation (presumably) and after spares recovery it went onto the dump.

Tim S

I had left the Victors before that (’86) so I thought it abit strange that 189 should have arrived in the early ’90’s.
Mind you, it had to be “sicky, sicky nine” to pull a stunt like that. When I worked on 669 you only had to put power on twice in a day for it to go u/s.

Thats the one Tim! I remember my father telling me that a Victor had come in with a fire, and I remember seeing her on my occasions.

I was starting to question myself with all this talk of XL189, because we were still in Scotland when she arrived at Waddington, and I was sure that the Victor I’d seen here was painted in hemp. Does anyone have any photos of her.

Thank you for all the replies.

VX, would you be happy to see her in a semi cut up state? If so I’ll get images scanned and posted (it might be after Christmas now though)

C6

As someone that was living near Waddington until quite recently, let me correct you all.

XL189 was the gate guard and it was still in the old camo scheme when it was scrapped in 89, the airframe that arrived with an onboard fire was XH669 and it was painted in the Hemp colour scheme and after sometime in the hangers for investigation (presumably) and after spares recovery it went onto the dump.

Tim S

Thats the one Tim! I remember my father telling me that a Victor had come in with a fire, and I remember seeing her on my occasions.

I was starting to question myself with all this talk of XL189, because we were still in Scotland when she arrived at Waddington, and I was sure that the Victor I’d seen here was painted in hemp. Does anyone have any photos of her.

Thank you for all the replies.

As someone that was living near Waddington until quite recently, let me correct you all.

XL189 was the gate guard and it was still in the old camo scheme when it was scrapped in 89, the airframe that arrived with an onboard fire was XH669 and it was painted in the Hemp colour scheme and after sometime in the hangers for investigation (presumably) and after spares recovery it went onto the dump.

Tim S

You’re quite right Tim, the old grey cells have been ill of late! It was XH669 I refered to in my earlier post. (Now edited)

C6

Ah yes I remember XH539, which was there from the late 60s till at least 1985(ish) after being retired as one of the trials B.2s.

Tim

Glad you mentioned that Tim – think we were talking about two aircraft at the same time!

Ahh, remember the poor ol’ Vulcan on the dump in that ghastly green paint?

As someone that was living near Waddington until quite recently, let me correct you all.

XL189 was the gate guard and it was still in the old camo scheme when it was scrapped in 89, the airframe that arrived with an onboard fire was XH669 and it was painted in the Hemp colour scheme and after sometime in the hangers for investigation (presumably) and after spares recovery it went onto the dump.

Tim S

Each to his own I guess…

Why so confrontational though?

.. there’s an awful lot of people on the internet that talk a load of rubbish!

Yes!

Wouldn’t you love to tell the person responsible for the ridiculous “gate guard” ruling precisely what you thought of him? I know I would!

No!

You’ve completely lost me there! If you mean that I get embroiled in arguments with people then yes that’s true, but then as you know, there’s an awful lot of people on the internet that talk a load of rubbish!

Re- the Victor, I’m not saying anything that isn’t true – and I would imagine most people would agree with me, particularly on a site such as this one? Wouldn’t you love to tell the person responsible for the ridiculous “gate guard” ruling precisely what you thought of him? I know I would!

Chox, how many fora did you say you’d fallen out with? :rolleyes:

A very sad victim of the stupid “one exhibit per station” rule that some idiot invented for no reason, back then.

Nobody ever worked-out why there was any need to restrict static exhibits to one aircraft or why anyone felt compelled to dictate such rules for every base, but I guess there’s always some fool that screws things up for everybody else. Pity that such people couldn’t use their time to do something more productive, rather than simply destroy valued pieces of history.

The incentive to fix it at that stage would have been low, unless it was VERY low houred from Major Maintenance.

IIRC 189 was in fact the fleet leader and was actually “officially” life-ex during the Falklands. It was also one of the first airframes slated for spares recovery and scrapping.

VX,

It was XH669 that landed with an o/b emergency (cockpit fire), and you are correct in stating that it was cut up in 1993. I have pictures somewhere of the end of the first days ‘mauling’ with JCB’s. I was stationed there at the time, and used to pop across to see it at quiet times. The cockpit had been burned quite a bit if I remember correctly, but probably more than likely due to fire training.

Cadman,
The Victor in question had served its time well, and despite it’s career, it bowed out playing an important fire training role. Bear in mind that it was landed with problems when the Victor fleet wasn’t far from retirement. The incentive to fix it at that stage would have been low, unless it was VERY low houred from Major Maintenance. You can’t save everything, we’d have no pots and pans to cook with:D

Not sure of the details of Victor XL189 arrival at Waddington re an onboard fire. The aircraft was allocated as BDR but not used as such, it was parked next to Vulcan XM607 at the main gate until removed and scrapped late 198 As has been said before on this Forum this was a very short sighted decission. This aircraft was one of the first to deploy to Assension Island in early 1982 and was used to provide long range reconnaissance of the Falklands and South Georgia. During ‘Black Buck 1’ XL189, flown by a Squadron leader Tuxford, it remained airbourne for 14 hours in support of Vulcan XM607, it being the last Victor to provide fuel to the Vulcan. On the return leg to Assension XL189 provided fuel to another Victor, which had a fuel problem, thus leaving its self with insuffient fuel to return to base. Sq L Tuxford would have had to ditch 400 mile short had two more Victors not been scramble to provide assitance. Tuxford recieved the AFC for his actions that day. We all know that not every aircraft can be saved from the scrapman but some, such as XL189, deserve better.