baloffskiWell done on getting the old girl on three legs again chaps and thanks for the pictures!
baloffskiJamming a whole load of unarmed 1000 lb’ers in a bomb bay of a Vulcan is no more dangerous than in the freight bay of a C130. It is going to take an awful lot more than a heavy landing to set one off.
The bombs would have to be first ground prepped with fuzes etc and then armed as part of the loading. Depending on what tail was fitted, there may have also been a windmill driven device which is unlocked as the bomb is released and then as it spins in the airflow during the descent, unwinds a further safety device designed to stop the weapon exploding under the aircraft.
Having spent many an hour fast asleep wedged inbetween 1000 lb bombs in the back of Albert, I can safely say that the thing that worried me most was whether I had enough British Tea in my bag; that Lipton’s Yellow Label stuff we used to get in the Gulf never quite hit the spot!!!
As for landing accidents any aircraft with no matter what on board would created a significant problem for the single runway at ASI if the worst should have happened.
baloffskiSat in a HAS babysitting a jet with a live load on.
24 hours later if Armageddon had come, I wasn’t going to feel any pain because I was wearing a personal Guinness fall out shelter. Ten pints of invincibility and a bag of chips on the way home for less than £3, those were the days!
baloffskiAbsolutely fantastic film which balanced the stunning air to air shots with historical footage and superb talking head sections from the veterans who flew them. The Vorderman top and tail sections were a bit stilted for me and I think the producers dropped the ball by going for glamour with a tenuous RAF connection, when a more seasoned interviewer would have made an interesting section flow better. That said they weren’t offensive and didn’t detract for what was my best cinematic experience for years.
I was struck by the candid commentary from the pilots who flew in the Battle about how they felt at the time and how over the years, the Spitfire has achieved a sort of romanticised mysticism when in fact it was designed to kill people and that should never be forgotten.
The thing that really hammered home the significance of the men and machine and their young age when entrusted to defend our skies, was as I left, some young people of about the same ages were going in to watch the latest fantasy blockbuster, it did raise a wry smile…..
One can only hope that if I ever reach the age of these magnificent people I have the same mental capacity and quick wit, especially the ATA lady’s!
baloffskiI notice that he kept the King’s Crown on his wings as opposed to changing it to the Queen’s crown as shown on the Tate and Lyle MACr badge. I wonder if this was the accepted form based upon date of award or if it was a snook being cocked at dress regulations?
baloffskiSome pictures of him/her taken in the last couple of days. Taken by a friend of mine, I have no more info at the moment unfortunately.
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baloffskiOh the irony. Criticising an act of remembrance performed to honour those who gave their lives, defending the very right of free speech which allows this drivel to be written.
baloffskiAs well as the Tech training we received on Albert, we also had to do SERE and sea survival at St Mawgan (probably Mountbatten in V Force days and I know that some of the lucky blighters got to do it all again at Goose Bay). We got the proper helmet and oxy mask fit followed by a couple of runs in the altitude training chamber at Henlow (North Luff for V?) including the explosive decompression one which clears your sinuses.
The classroom learning bit was the aircraft specific Q course for each trade (plus a weapons overview) and took just over 6 months and you would go down to the Flight Line in the evening to get your spannering skills outside your basic trade up to scratch. If you were a heavy you would spend a lot of time soldering and tracing wiggly amp problems and if you were a light it would be wheel changes, starter motor changes etc. All the time filling Gen Books and Spares bags ‘with every known thing which will be really useful downroute’
Once you had passed out of the school you went to the section where you were taught a lot of get you home fixes and spent a lot of time in the Sim consolidating. Then you were buddied up with a qualified AGE (We weren’t known as ASC/Crew Chiefs) who beasted you around various routes. Wherever possible one route would take in a BX so you could stock up on MagLITES and Gerber/Leathermans and all the other paraphenalia.
Most people I know passed their Route Check after about 12 months all told and then you got your Reds and Greens about 6 months after
baloffskiGood luck with getting her running again, I know from bitter experience as a Tornado Sumpy it will fight you every inch of the way – there were times when I would have happily dropped a lit Zippo into the fuel tanks of many aircraft, especially with the old style MECU test set and plates on, trying to get values into the pokey little pots (having first lost the will to live doing the maths off the 701A for the reheat curve and WLTDB etc).
But it was always became worthwhile when you got it out onto the detuner and turned lots and lots of Avtur into Fire and Noise. Letting it soak for a minute in max dry and recording the placards, then that wonderful kick in the back as you push the throttle through the gate will make all your woes seem a lifetime away.
baloffskiYou need to get the kickstarter link on your website. I had a bit of a senior moment as to where I had read about it last night so trotted over to the site for a look but couldn’t find anything. Obviously I have found it again but you must be missing some traffic from bored googlers etc?
Anyway I will be chucking a couple of bob in the pot later today/at the weekend for a fine cause!
baloffskiI don’t think I am alone in having chucked a few bob at 558 in the past then getting so narked at the constant begging letters etc. that I stopped giving, diverting my donations elsewhere.
However if they started a collection for a new hangar to be built to house her at say Elvington or Brunty so she could stay dry in the winter and stretch her legs in the summer, I would probably let the moths out of my wallet again.
Their begging, sorry PR machine has plenty of fundraising experience and it could easily reach the target to build nothing fancy; just a heated shelter with a bit of an office, maybe a mock up Sqn Tea bar to keep the money coming in (although the pictures on the Uckers Board may need toning down a bit) and maybe a classroom or two.
Offer overnight stays in a freezing cold, wind swept QRA Caravan with a mock scramble at zero daft hundred hours and top it all off with a compo bacon grill and egg banjo washed down with scalding hot, properly stewed tea for breakfast. People opting for the Gold Package would get the opportunity to stand in a blast chiller with water being poured down their neck whilst working with scuff knuckled hands hands inside a panel above their heads trying to wirelock a union you can’t see AND work on at the same time. A realistic NAAFI wagon would come and beep its horn at 1000hrs to summon you to a steaming jock pie and yet more hyper stewed tea. You could even get a jobsworth cook to throw you out of the Airman’s Mess at Lunchtime for being wet and smelling of Avtur. (Where do I sign I hear Cold War Warriors across the country shout!)
Seriously though, look at what the Lightning chaps did, and still do with the Q sheds. It should be a walk in the park for the Vulcan lot having kept a complex jet flying for years on a shoestring.
Now for a bit of totally biased and unfortunately quite unrealistic wish from me – one of the C130K currently sat awaiting sale in a hangar at Saints. A new wing box and you have, with careful management, an airframe still widely supported by manufacturer/agent which could keep flying for the next 25 years! (and then I awoke…….)
baloffskiWhen we arrived at Marham in ’82 with 617 we occupied a hangar until the HAS site was finished and we could move across. The Victor boys used to refer to our jets as Tonka Toys, because of their relative lack of stature compared to HP’s finest. That is the earliest mention I know of.
Back to the photo, couple of things. 617 used to be the only Sqn who regularly had painted fin caps and they were ‘retained ‘ when the jets went in for servicing. Also the fin caps were known to delaminate very easily (even with the black flexane applied) and used to get robbed from jets going into ASF for servicing to fit onto the jet going out. Could this even be a U/S fin cap fitted for completeness? Sqns used to cosset their own aircraft but once they went to centralised fleet management you could often see ‘mixed dress’ as seen here:
http://forums.airshows.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7244
To add a bit of a hunch to the conundrum, I wouldn’t put money on it, but the XV markings look like Laarbruch marks to me; based upon the lack of the TWCU sword and crown badge which was applied to a lot of ex-Laarbruch jets which moved across the North Sea and lack of Sqn Ident codes. TWCU used the digits from the Aircraft Serial Number and XV(R) used the prefix T. With so many jets on the flightline the tail letters were important especially when the TTTE drawdown meant we often had 20 plus on the line and some carried 3 letter codes.
baloffskiThe other safeguard is watching the gauges as you start an engine. We were taught to talk to the engine we were starting – so it would go something along the lines of “Check air supply, (start) Button in and check for a pressure drop indicating the start valve is open, rotation (the rpm gauge starts to indicate the speed), fuel is flowing, ignition (JPT rises)” and then you would talk your way through the rest of the start including stuff like fuel cutback and bleed valve operation etc where applicable. There are set limits and if you were to select the wrong engine, the gauge you were expecting to move wouldn’t in which case you would call a stop start and investigate.
Saying all that I always pulled all the blanks on my walkround because basically the embarrassment and subsequent ‘harsh banter’ would have been too much to bear if I caught myself out and ended up sucking a blank down an intake!
baloffskiDear BBC,
Please ensure that this programme is shown to all commissioning editors and director/producers as a fine example of what standard a historical aviation programme should be made to.
If you could see your way to making this into a five part mini series, I promise not to moan about the licence fee for a good 20 minutes!
baloffskiGood to see the Tornadoes getting some TLC. Will we see them get their own thread to the same high quality as this?
What are the chances with the draw down starting in earnest, of getting some engines to complete the back ends? I guess that even a couple of Jetpipes (Module 15s to give them their Sunday titles) with the right dressing items could be cobbled in, given the rear scissor link fits on there and the rear doors would stop any wobble it may work.
Thanks for all your work keeping safe two of the types I spent my RAF career working on (now if you could just manage to snaffle a C130K from St Athan, the set would be complete!) If I wore a hat I would doff it in your direction!
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