Considering how long it took to plumb in refuelling probes for Nimrods in 1982 (a couple of weeks for the first one?), I think it should not be beyond the wit of man to rig up a probe which would fit over the receptacle in pretty short order. In fact, I think such a thing has been invented.

It was done in very short order. There is however a great difference between a solution that’ll “do a trip” and one that lasts the lifetime of the airframe. The original IFR fit for the Nimrod was not to normal technical specs.

Schorsch, the point I was trying to make wasn’t about how effective it was (or otherwise), but to try to note that suggesting that Blackbuck 1 (at least) doesn’t merit being termed a strategic operation isn’t correct, since the intent behind it was most definitely focused at the strategic and operational levels.

Indeed, the strategic target was to split up the Argentine airforce. This worked well, alot of assets were kept at home for defence instead of attacking the fleet.

Retiring an 1950s aircraft in the 80ies, that eats resources, cannot fly missions against a defended airspace, doesn’t have useful range, and after all doesn’t carry so terribbly much bombs. I would say: overdue.

It was 25 years ago today. A victor with a bomb bay full of bombs instead of fuel would have meant more iron bombs, but they didn’t have the bits. Still 21 seemed to do the trick.

I also think back to when the Shack was soldiering on well past its sell by date. Luckily its safety record was unblemished by the time it finally went out of service at least as far as AEW (though I am sure the RAF lost several ASW examples etc I don’t recall any crashes quite like the Afghanistan one that befell the Nimrod).

Don’t even mention the Lightning as regards crashes. An appalling record of death. They go on about the F104 but our Lightning was almost as bad. One of the last was that nice chap Thompson who I saw display at Mildenhall only to learn of his loss over the sea a few weeks later. Have a vid of the MAF display off TV and on my mate’s camcorder… now if only I can get motivated to make a clip and post it somewhere.

XF710 was a notable accident with a Shack that resulted in a Cat 5 a/c. Apiston in no3 engine failed causing a fire which burnt the a/c pretty much to a cinder. Fortunately there was no loss of life.

Indeed the Lightnings were somewhat accident prone, 74 were lost in RAF service. In the short time that I served at Binbrook (10 months) there were two landing accidents. XS899 sheared off it’s nose leg after a heavy landing and XR752, well he just landed. Pity about the lack of three greens for his u/c.

I must admit that there are indeed maintenance problems with the Nimrods ( as there always are when you are desperately waiting for a replacement), I did find some of the “facts” to be less than credible. Granted, the airframes are old, certain fault that were never accounted for are rearing their ugly heads and of course spares allocation will remain a head-ache. These problems have been faced on many other a/c in the RAF, The Lghtning and the Victor to name but two had similar problems. There has obviously been alot of cost-cutting and I think that maybe they’ve tried to shave a little too much off the fleet and not thought of the consequences. That’s not new either btw.

Are there any victors that aren’t effectively life expired? the only one i could think of would be the one you guys are talking about. ive been told that the two live ones are life expired.
just wondering 😀

The K2’s are all around 130 FI units, so XH648 is a better bet fatigue-wise just a poorer choice engine and systems-wise.

I’m sure this has cropped up before, but I can’t find it.

I understand there are products out there which fill the tyres of static display aircraft with a kind of foam which takes a lot of the strain off the tyres.

Can anyone elaborate on this or point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

Roy.

Builders expanding foam?

I don’t know how major the differences were but the sole B.2 was stressed for low-level work and it may have been possible to convert the existing fleet. Many of the Victor and Vulcan B.2s were upgrades from B.1s.

I don’t know about the Vulcans but the Victors XH668-675 were converted from B1 to B2, but this was carried out on the production line before they even left the factory. There was no upgrade of existing airframes. The changes would have been too much to carry out reasonably.