Vickers Valiant Tribute -1st Of The V-Bombers

Thanks again Pep, it has to be the browser issue – brings the link up in the browser panel and starts going blue from the left, but then just stays there, refusing to get through- I’ll try it again later, but better get to bed via a bus – assume you caught yours OK! 🙂

COSFORD VALIANT NOSES, 70’s

I visited Cosford in the early 1970’s for the first open day of the museum. In the first hanger at the bottom of the hill were I think 3 Valiant noses quite long sections. Does anyone know which ones they were and what happened to them.

Fascinating if they really had THREE of them, but I’ve never heard of that before, if true I can only assume 1-2 at least might possibly have been saved for testing of some sort, as to retain three is “V” unusual – or even all three were to be used for some technical purpose. This was some time after they were scrapped so a real puzzler unless someone simply determined that they would be saved and stored and possibly with a view to be distributed amongst other museums – hope to hear more.

TRY THIS

Try this one Gary

Rob.

Thx for that Peppery, it brings up the link in my header bar but jams, not your fault, I think my Safari needs updating but will try tomorow – or later today – a bit of a late from the office yest @ 4.20am and I was hoping for a slightly earlier day, but as its past 2.00am now and TalkSport is still going I think I’ve blown it – must go soon for the night bus from W1…

I also tried the useless Firefox an all it does is spin around, I don’t seem able to get on with this finicky browser at all these days. Bah. 🙁

WP220

Possibly straying from the thread a little but I thought that you might be interested in this picture of WP220 taken at RAF Shawbury B of B Day in 1961. I went travelling for many years after this and this was the only time I saw a Valiant.

Thanks for that Stirling, its nice to see new images of the aircraft and I would have liked to have seen the display that looks to be set up outside the crew door, in the days when you got some great shows with real value and all of classic aircraft. What’s left is in gardens and museums now!

She was with ‘138 for a good spell from 1955 onwards the year before Suez aside from mod periods at various places, then 7 sqn/232 OCU/7 sqn and ended up at the St Athan graveyard in ’62 well before the scrappings began, no idea why she wasn’t used to the end 🙁

The Valiant nose at Brooklands is now in the “Wellington” hangar. As the building is so crammed it is difficult to photograph as are all the aircraft that are in that hanagar

Thx for pic anyway Rob, yes that’s about what I got and going in closer dosen’t really improve matters, too crammed really. Some lovely old filing cabinets and other strange detritus in the strat chamber as formerly graced by the immaculate and systems-capable Sea Vixen though. before it was denied cover and ended up in S’ton which wanted it, quite a shot in the foot to Brooklands at the time. You’re in Scotland though, so you can get to see XD875 as mentioned elsewhere – Lucky you!

Justing picking up on a couple of points about Victors. The B.1 at Radlett was presumably XA918 (£380 – gosh). The Victor nose would probably have been one of two: Either the cocooned specimen (XA927 if I remember correctly) at the Park Street end or the unused shell sitting in the hangar at Colney Street. Does anyone know which one?

Ah March 2010, what an issue that was, but they’re all special to me. If only you could go back eh, but then what money would you be earning and would there be space for it somewhere, and I reckon women were less interested than today’s more enlightened times and more into the Fab Four and the Stones. And Hughie Green meant it all most sincerely, he really did…

VIEWABLE VALIANT

Only current viewable Valiant is in Scotland at Highland Aircraft Preservation Society, its the Ken Ward example XD875 (as opposed to the sectioned flight deck XD857 @ Flixton) formerly at NAM for a time before its later move onwards to the highlands. All survivors are on a PDF on p.1, (should still be there anyway).

Thanks for the pic, almost got it in but well worth including, it really was a graceful but imposing design, the pods gave it an extra bit of “oomph!” too.
Had a couple of great air shows at Alconbury including last fly-by of the Bucc, along with great, proper U.S. hot dogs and no silly money too! Really sad when the Yanks pulled out.

I’ve always liked the look of the aeroplane, I was very happy to see it when it was at Hendon.
Powerplants aside, isn’t it WWII-level technology or at least aerodynamically with it’s orthodox construction (something that can’t be said of the Victor, Vulcan, B-47 or B-52)?

It was interesting reading this re-juvenated thread and I was interested in the all-electric aspect. Having seen mention of aircraft such as the B-29 being mentioned, I thought it worth mentioning that actually this concept had certainly already existed in the 1930’s, as the B-17 was essentially an all electric aeroplane, which first flew in 1935.

Are any of the surviving cockpits currently available ‘for inspection’ ? A purely selfish question, as I’ve ‘cabbed’ a Victor (Marham) a Vulcan (Coventry) and I’d like to complete the trio.
And has anybody got a Short Sperrin in their barn……

I need to consult various tomes to confirm but IIRC George Edwards suggested to the Air Ministry, or whichever Dept. it was, they could have an aeroplane not quite as good but a lot quicker to be going on with.

Laurence – the definitive grayscale picture!;) But as long as you have retained the pictures in your memory….

dhfan – was it produced as a stopgap or did it become one by default? The Vickers design was less complicated than its stablemates so arrived first.

I’ve always liked the look of the aeroplane, I was very happy to see it when it was at Hendon.
Powerplants aside, isn’t it WWII-level technology or at least aerodynamically with it’s orthodox construction (something that can’t be said of the Victor, Vulcan, B-47 or B-52)?

That was the idea. Not as advanced as the Vulcan or Victor but adequate capability as a stopgap and much sooner/cheaper.

Here’s some info taken from the Victor Association Newsletter of March 2010, could we do with these airframes and their prices today!
…….

Justing picking up on a couple of points about Victors. The B.1 at Radlett was presumably XA918 (£380 – gosh). The Victor nose would probably have been one of two: Either the cocooned specimen (XA927 if I remember correctly) at the Park Street end or the unused shell sitting in the hangar at Colney Street. Does anyone know which one?

Charlie: The best of mine is grey on a grey background with grey tarmac in front.

Mine too – out of focus monochrome white blurs against a grey back cloth. But the memories are very vivid!!

I was prompted by this rejuvenated thread to check my sightings of Valiants from the mid 1950s. Like charliehunt (post 45) I enjoyed seeing them in the Wittering circuit, which extended as far as Peterborough where I was, when they were flying blind approaches (I believe using BABS -the Blind Approach Beacon System) with undercarriage down. Maybe someone can confirm that they would indeed have been BABS approaches.

Apart from the very common sightings over Peterborough, I saw a number of them at Marshall’s Cambridge for modifications in 1958-1959, as well as in local air shows. I looked through my photos of the time, but my pictures of Valiants are too poor to publish!

The Valiant nose at Brooklands is now in the “Wellington” hangar. As the building is so crammed it is difficult to photograph as are all the aircraft that are in that hanagar

I’m happy to share once again this photo taken by my father and subsequently identified as being taken at nearby Alconbury.
Sadly the Valiant is a type I never got a chance to see fly, as they had all been grounded the year before I was born!

Rob[ATTACH=CONFIG]242104[/ATTACH]

As a teenager in the mid-50s it was exciting to watch them in and out of Wittering, although reading an earlier post I was clearly lucky to see them in the Winter months!!;)