I have made a few enquiries and this is the reply via a third party:

My good friend in the village who flew Mosquitos during the war and with BOAC afterwards says:
We didn’t know of 1013. We set the altimeter to read
zero at take off. Flew on that same setting throughout the sortie until on
returning when we put on our IFF to speak to our Sector Controller, who
would, in turn, pass us over to our airfield controller who would pass us
the altimeter setting to set.

WRT PN’s comments above:

In WW2 the same ‘boxed’ secrecy would probably have prevailed with night fighter intruder sqns being told only minimal information about the bomber force attacks.

I have put some additional questions to the informant on that subject and hope to be able to provide further information.

exmpa

Mr Creosote

I am told that this recovery plan was not always in place in later years as targets became more distant.

I really am not qualified comment on that because what I wrote is what I was told, not something I had to confront personally. Maybe someone from the later years will come along and be able to answer your question.

exmpa

Lift

A bit of aerodynamics, a touch of thermodynamics and pinch of meteorology here.

The aeros’ first:

In order to produce lift the wing must produce a pressure differential between the upper and lower surfaces. The section of the wing accelerates the airflow over the upper surface and thus creates a lower pressure than the lower surface.

Now the thermo’s:

If you lower the pressure of a gas you lower its temperature. This converse of this is rather easier to demonstrate, think of how warm a bicycle pump becomes as you use it. The temperature rises as you repeatedly compress the air in the body to inflate the tyre.

The met’ bit:

The atmosphere contains water vapour in varying amounts at all times. The amount of water vapour present will govern the temperature at which it becomes visible moisture, i.e. fog. This temperature is the “Dew Point” and it the point at which the air becomes “saturated”. On the day the photo was taken the ambient temperature would have been fairly close to the Dew Point and the small temperature drop over the upper surface of the wing was sufficient to saturate the air and produce a local “fog” The pressure drop also plays a part as the lower the pressure the lower the Dew Point for a given air mass.

The Flap vortices are produced by the mixing of the upper and lower surface flows at the tip of the flap. The pressure differential gives rise to a rotating vortex. This again produces a presure drop and leads to a local saturation, the visible vortex.

The above is very simplified explanation of the mechanisms involved. A further frequently seen example of this is the mist that forms in the intake if a jet engine as it spools up to takeoff thrust on a damp day.

exmpa

the aircrew can now sign the F700 and take over the aircraft

You won’t get far with one of those! Better nip out and by a Tech’ Log quick.;)

exmpa

she now weigh’s in at 39.000lb

Probably more like 79K.

exmpa

how well regarded were the ECM systems? Were they considered capable of keeping a Vulcan alive long enough to get to an intended target behind the Iron Curtain? I dont know whether anyone will be able to answer this but what were the intended targets for the V-force in the 1970’s, were ambitions scaled back as the Soviet air defence network became more competent?

There is much more to your question than you might realize. Firstly it is necessary to understand the guiding principle upon which Britain’s independent deterrent was based. It was to maintain a force capable of inflicting an unacceptable degree of damage upon a potential enemy in event that they attacked the UK. To put it simply, it meant the ability to effectively destroy Moscow. Other major cities would also be targeted, but Moscow would have priority.

The war plans fell into 2 categories, National and SACEUR. The National plan was a go it alone scenario, unlikely I know but it was the justification for the independent UK nuclear capability. The SACEUR Plan was a fully integrated plan that involved coordination of all strike forces. Obviously the latter plan was much larger and the range and type of target more varied. Crews were allocated targets under both plans. You only knew your own targets and no others but it would seem reasonable that there was some degree of duplication to ensure that priority targets were covered. Both plans were subject to regular review and revision and the targets allocated to individual crews would change. In addition there were the QRA targets which for obvious reasons had to be common to at least a number of crews. These targets would have to be constantly covered by the QRA force.

Targeting and tactics obviously evolved in response to improvements in air defence capability. The switch from high level to low level penetration is a prime example of this process. As I mentioned above, the plans were constantly reviewed and when you were allocated a new target you did not know the reason for this. Possibly the target had ceased to justify a strike mission because a unit had moved or maybe the defences had been strengthened and it was now judged necessary to change the delivery platform to retain a sufficient degree of assuredness of success. You were not told because you did not need to know. The situation during my time on the V Force was that from a UK base we could make a high level transit outside EW radar cover and descend to low level to make an offensive penetration to the target at any point on the Soviet perimeter from East of North Cape to the Black Sea. We were then planned to recover to an allied airfield. I am told that this recovery plan was not always in place in later years as targets became more distant.

With a little imagination, a few line-of-sight calculations and some rough figures for Vulcan range and fuel consumption it is not difficult to arrive at the conclusion that most of the targets must have been in the Western Soviet Union. It is now widely known that most of the routes were planned to penetrate in the Baltic region many having transited Swedish airspace with the prior knowledge of the Swedish authorities. The attack planned was quite unlike anything that had ever happened before. It was no longer a massed raid on a single target but individual aircraft proceeding to separate targets. There was however a very high degree of coordination involved. As crews you were not aware of the details, but you were very strongly aware of the need to follow your planned route and adhere to the timings, if only to ensure that you were not caught by a “friendly” weapon detonation. What was also apparent when you examined your “war” flight plans was the stress laid upon the timing element because this was central to the penetration plan. What follows was told to me many years later by someone closely involved in the operational planning, for obvious reasons the crews were not made aware of these details. The planning hinged upon passing most of the force through one or two fairly small areas in a very short period of time. From this it could be deduced that some form of defence suppression would have occurred shortly prior to our arrival. As a USAF pilot once said to me “The most effective ECM is measured in Kilotons”. Once through the defended area, aircraft would proceed to their individual targets along a number of loosely defined corridors, leaving and joining them at various points along the route. The use of ECM in this phase would be reactive to any threats, reliance being placed upon remaining undetected in the general confusion and mayhem. Would the ECM equipment have been effective? Who really knows, we certainly felt it would help, but thank goodness never had to find out. Following weapon release the aircraft would climb to high level at the latest possible point to make the briefed recovery airfield. During this phase the ECM would be switched on in a supportive jamming role. After all having just released a nuclear weapon is hardly conducive to disguising your presence. We would then have landed at an allied airfield to await further orders. Would that airfield still be in existence? I have my doubts. Would there have been anywhere left to go home to? probably not. I am very glad that we never had to find out.

So there it is; that is the best I can do to answer your questions. The final one I suppose is “Was it all rational?” and the answer really must be “No it wasn’t”. However we would have gone, we would have done as we were ordered so maybe we bought some time for sense to prevail between the protagonists.

exmpa

an electronics officer recalls difficulty in sleeping in what amounts to a 3 layered suit with some sort of cooling system built in and connectors everywhere …………..

I presume that that was when he was in the aircraft! 😀

On QRA at RS15 you normally wore flying suit and appropriate underwear. I can’t recall anyone bothering with the Air Vent Suit on Q. You usually slept in the underwear (long coms and shirt, later replaced by the rollneck) and just pulled your suit and boots on if needs be. QRA normally lasted 24hrs/crew but as I said above you could be held on RS15 for up to 30 days.

Picking when to take a shower was an important decision, get it wrong and you could find yourself wearing a wet soggy flying suit for a couple of hours.:mad:

exmpa

This method has served the RAF and every other Display Team well for many years now, so ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’!!

That’s fine, I just hope that you have the RAF’s wallet to match.

exmpa