Flames were seen below and rear of the aircraft, but to the crew it appeared to be from one of the engines.

Absolute nonsense, the crew neither observed, assumed or reported anything of the kind. The sequence of warnings was as follows:

1102.40 Bomb Bay Fire warning

1103.20 Centre Section Overheat

1103.30 Aileron Bay underfloor Warning

1104.50 Smoke reported in fuselage

1105.20 Green Hydraulic System Failure

1105.30 “Landing gear problem” The gear had been selected down prior to the Green system loss of pressure, the crew had to very rapidly carry out the Gear Extension on Red System drill.

1105.56 No2 Engine Fire Warning

1106.10 The captain makes the only reference on the RT to the No2 engine fire warning:

“OK landing off this, we’ve got a fire indication in No2 engine, there’s a real fire in the bomb bay as far as we can see”

ATC: Sarex 51

This followed shortly by the Brace call

1106.15 Approx. The aircraft lands

1107.00 Underfloor Warning Elevator Bay as the crew shutdown and evacuate.

I later heard that the pilot was critizised for not ditching it in the sea, but I don’t know whether that is true or not.

Not true.

exmpa

Looking through pictures again it seems the fitting of the port panel is fairly arbitery, ie some Blue Steel aircraft have both panels, but some don’t, and some much later aircraft have both panels fitted, both B.2s and K.s, any idea on the fit of these exmpa?

Last flew the aircraft in 1972, not a lot of knowledge of what the fits were after that.

exmpa

Was’nt Robert Ballard one of the officers aboard NR-1?

Ballard was given access to the NR1 under the “dual use” concept, but he was never operating crew.

exmpa

Another interesting book on a related area is The Silent War by John Pina Craven.

Happy reading:)

erxmpa

I wonder what clandestine missions it has undertaken as I doubt such a sophisticated vessel would have been constructed for any other purpose and possibly that is why it was never commissioned into the US Navy?

You may find Dark Waters an interesting read.

exmpa

If you’re referring to the Bond film, an Italian exchange officer/pilot, in the co-pilots seat, steals the Vulcan after killing the crew. (BTW: Did Bomber Command have exhange pilots in nuclear armed Vulcans?)

By the late 60s the only exchange post at unit level was a USAF officer on the Vulcan OCU groundschool staff. The issue was access to or participation in the national (UK only) targeting plans. Exchange officers in other roles; at the time and later; were all employed in NATO assigned forces, e.g. Nimrod, Buccaneer (maritime strike role), F4, Jaguar etc. When some of those forces became involved in Corporate; a national operation; we were unable to deploy US exchange personnel.

exmpa

All very well to quote performance figures but we all know an empty Nimrod could get into Cosford perfectly well.

No one has quoted any figures except to state the LDA at Cosford. You state you know it is possible, so what are the relevant parameters and how have you calculated them?

By the way, please don’t bother referring the post Corporate ops into Port Stanley. Those were special circumstances accorded a high operational priority. They employed a special technique that required specific authorisation and training. That it embodied a degree of risk as was borne out by a couple of incidents in training.

exmpa