Vulcans to the Falklands – 1982

Don’t forget dear old ‘597!

From the RAF Museums page on its own Black Buck Vulcan ‘598,

“29 Apr 82 The first two Vulcans, XM598 flown by F/L Withers and crew and XM607
departed Waddington on a non – stop flight to Ascension Island supported by
Victor K2’s from Marham.Leaving Waddington at 0900 each Vulcan required
two in – flight refuellings, arriving at Wideawake at 1800 after a flight of 4000
nautical miles. Colour photo at Wideawake – Wingspan International May/June 2001 p.71.”

I reckon you might have seen the intensive pre mission in flight refuelling trials / practice. Don’t forget that Vulcans had previously had their AAR probes removed, and there was a mad scramble to find, and refit them prior to the missions, not to mention getting the systems to work again and train the crews.

Just remembered the refuelling corridor that extends down over Cornwall, no.11 is it?

From the RAF Museums page on its own Black Buck Vulcan ‘598,

“29 Apr 82 The first two Vulcans, XM598 flown by F/L Withers and crew and XM607
departed Waddington on a non – stop flight to Ascension Island supported by
Victor K2’s from Marham.Leaving Waddington at 0900 each Vulcan required
two in – flight refuellings, arriving at Wideawake at 1800 after a flight of 4000
nautical miles. Colour photo at Wideawake – Wingspan International May/June 2001 p.71.”

I reckon you might have seen the intensive pre mission in flight refuelling trials / practice. Don’t forget that Vulcans had previously had their AAR probes removed, and there was a mad scramble to find, and refit them prior to the missions, not to mention getting the systems to work again and train the crews.

……and there were two specific Air to Air Refuelling areas over Cornwall. One directly overhead, running from Yeovilton to St Mawgan (ARA 7 as it was back then) and another off the North Cornish coast running parallel with the coast (ARA 11??..12??..can’t remember). I remember seeing a Vulcan tanking from a C130 (…or maybe the other way around) one day in ’82 when I was on a visit to Tintagel.

So, as pagen says, it may have been training in one of these two areas that you were seeing. There was a lot of it going on at the time. Nimrod had a probe fitted to it for the first time and some already retired Vulcans rapidly returned to service, had tanks fitted in the bomb bay to act as tankers (50 Sqn) some C130’s were also converted to tankers to help out.

The two AAR areas are still there today, but the numbers have changed.

From the RAF Museums page on its own Black Buck Vulcan ‘598,

“29 Apr 82 The first two Vulcans, XM598 flown by F/L Withers and crew and XM607
departed Waddington on a non – stop flight to Ascension Island supported by
Victor K2’s from Marham.Leaving Waddington at 0900 each Vulcan required
two in – flight refuellings, arriving at Wideawake at 1800 after a flight of 4000
nautical miles. Colour photo at Wideawake – Wingspan International May/June 2001 p.71.”

I reckon you might have seen the intensive pre mission in flight refuelling trials / practice. Don’t forget that Vulcans had previously had their AAR probes removed, and there was a mad scramble to find, and refit them prior to the missions, not to mention getting the systems to work again and train the crews.

Hmmm… I’m pretty sure that it was early evening – I can see it in my minds eye now. Therefore, it sounds like it must have been one of the trial flights you mention. One things for certain – it was certainly impressive in the sky – great big contrails.

Off post a little, I also remember some time in 82 or 83 one Saturday morning a number of F105 Thunderchiefs flying over Cornwall (also contrailing) on their way back Stateside after being retired from their base in Germany…

Yes that refuelling lane was handy, I must be slightly younger than you as I don’t remember that (wish I had seen F-105s!), but I do remember seeing the A-10s leaving Europe.

Yes that refuelling lane was handy, I must be slightly younger than you as I don’t remember that (wish I had seen F-105s!), but I do remember seeing the A-10s leaving Europe.

The F105’s were very small @ c. 30,000 ft!!! It probably sounds much better than it actually was.

Another very common sight was Dominies at contrailing height heading West bound, then turning at Land’s End and heading back from whence they came.
All of a sudden this stopped (after a number of years) and chatting to my Dad the other day, he said that it never happens now. I have often wondered what happened in the RAF training syllabus that stopped this type of navigation training in the Dominies?

Dominies are now a common visiter to Cardiff airport, a quick navex followed by a local curry apparently!

>>Don’t forget that Vulcans had previously had their AAR probes removed,<<

None of the active aircraft had their probes removed- even the ones at saints still had them mounted including XM653 which had the most inventive electrical looming ever seen in the bomb bay.

In the months prior to Corporate kicking off an Argentine party of military officials had arrived at saints to inspect some of the withdrawn Vulcans that were still parked on the main airfield- it was said that they were intent on purchasing some plus a bucket load of spares. At that time they would have got some good runners as they hadn’t long been delivered. It seems the secret squirrels had passed the word to the govt of the possibility of invasion thus any possible sale was declined.

The same batch of aircraft were later moved to Pickestone for possible scrapping although once fighting had started this was quickly stopped and all on base Vulcan peeps were put on standby to resume some very fast returns to service. During that period XL388 was used for trials concerning the fitment of external fuel tanks to the Skybolt positions thus clearing the bomb bay for the carriage of LGB’S.

Also a quick note concerning bomb bay tanks- every one that I worked on carried either an 5000 or 8000 lbs tank in forward part of the bomb bay which gave a rough total of 77,000 or 80,000 lbs of fuel overall.

Cheers
mad jock

If you want the reality of what the BLACK BUCK mission planners had to deal with (and I was there!) then get your local library to get you a copy of “Island Base . . . .” by Captain Bob McQueen, Whittles Publishing, 2005, ISBN 1904445187. Go to page 39 (at least in my print version). There you will see the fuel transfer plan for one of the BLACK BUCK’s. If you’ve got a 1st Class Honours in experimental Maths then you might be able to make head or tail of this. All I know is that every time we (the Met) changed any of the parameters the bad language from the Planning Cell could be heard all across the Island!! I’m told that the Planning Cell staff slept for 24-hrs straight off after the first one.
I do like working with experts! The guys in the Planning Cell were brilliant
Resmoroh

Just remembered the refuelling corridor that extends down over Cornwall, no.11 is it?

11 & 12 off the coast (11 off Lands End, 12 further north), 10 mainly over land (hence very rarely used nowadays) extending up toward Yeovilton. I don’t know how different it was in 1982. I wasn’t tanking back then. I was a bit too young.:)

West coast airspace

There you will see the fuel transfer plan for one of the BLACK BUCK’s.

lifted from here, hope they don’t mind the hotlink

Hmmm… I’m pretty sure that it was early evening – I can see it in my minds eye now. Therefore, it sounds like it must have been one of the trial flights you mention. One things for certain – it was certainly impressive in the sky – great big contrails.

I am sure I remember reading that he initial pair of Vulcans returned to Waddington at some point and XM596 and XM597 (which had been equipped with ‘Shrike’) went out seperately (a day apart) to carry out the anti radar operations. Perhaps it was one of them that you saw accompanied by two Victors?

Re. the above refuelling plan – it looks complicated enough on paper, let alone sorting out the right tanker at the right time in the dark (and in radio silence) 😮

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Re. the above refuelling plan – it looks complicated enough on paper, let alone sorting out the right tanker at the right time in the dark (and in radio silence) :eek:[/QUOTE]

I take it most people have read Vulcan 607 that confirms the nightmare the first sortie was

Regards

Jon

Seem to recall reading in “Vulcan 607” (correct me if I’m wrong) that when the first two aircraft deployed to Ascension they took their first load of bombs with them, ie already in their bomb bays. Wouldn’t it have been more efficient to have flown the bombers there empty and “light,” and transport the bombs by C-130? And isn’t it difficult to land an aircraft at such high weights? Or was it all dictated by the urgency of the situation?

I stand to be corrected here but on the initial outbound flight to Ascension, XM607 and XM598 were fully loaded with bombs, fuel and the customary crew chief (XM607 had a box of books in the nose gear area I recall from somewhere). Yet by the time they reached Ascension, their fuel (or lack of it) meant that the overall weight of the a/c was well below the required weight to land safely.

Also I believe the RAF Transport fleet was heavily tied down with supplies for the fleet heading south without having to carry 42,000lbs worth of bombs as well. Suppose it was ‘killing two birds with one stone’

Reading between the lines I’m guessing that they carried the first bomb loads with them from the UK, while a supply of bombs was on the way via ship.

Wouldn’t it have been more efficient to have flown the bombers there empty and “light,” and transport the bombs by C-130? And isn’t it difficult to land an aircraft at such high weights? Or was it all dictated by the urgency of the situation?

Try applying a bit of logic to the above:

a. The Vulcan is designed to carry bombs.

b. If you carry them in something else you need bomb trolleys and all the paraphanalia required to load them on the Vulcan, not to mention armourers.

c. If the Vulcan gets there and the bombs don’t then your journey was a waste of time. You always deploy with the critical equipment.

d. By carrying them on the delivery aircraft you have reduced your AT requirement by at least 2 aircraft. This is more efficient and they can be used for other urgent tasks.

I could go on, but I hope you see the reasoning behind loaded deployment.

exmpa

Off post a little, I also remember some time in 82 or 83 one Saturday morning a number of F105 Thunderchiefs flying over Cornwall (also contrailing) on their way back Stateside after being retired from their base in Germany…

The last USAFE F-105D unit left Germany in Sept 1967.

By ’82/83 only a few Air National Guard units flying D’s and G’s were left stateside, but could possibly have taken part in a last exercise deployment to Europe before the type’s final withdrawl from service in ’84.

I think the last deployment to the USAFE-UK was in 1978, but not sure about Germany…??

And isn’t it difficult to land an aircraft at such high weights?

Since the V-Bombers were designed from the outset to carry nuclear weapons the capability to land with a full bombload and a decent reserve of fuel was surely designed-in from the start! :diablo: