One anorak to another . . .

“Big mistake there, that model didn’t have a mid-upper turret. Sheesh, you’d think they’d get it right!”

The Valiant was always intended to be a stop-gap airframe. Built quickly with minimum technological advantages, it was designed and built to provide a fall-back in the event that the Vulcan and Victor programmes suffered serious delay. In the event, both the Vulcan and Victor came up to scratch in time and the RAF had the machines it wanted/needed, hence development of the Valiant tailed off. The wing spar cracks finally killed it even though the type had only been latterly used for PR and IFR duties and not in the aerodynamically stressful bombing role – in which the Vulcan and to some extent the Victor excelled.

Essentially, the Valiant, although a fairly decent kite, did not have the development potential the other two had (or were considered to have). But it was chosen to drop the UK’s first nuke.

The above from memory only at this time of night, but reading a few books on the V-Force will flesh it out. Can recommend V-Bombers by Barry Jones.

By the way, what is the Avro 730? 😉 The Vulcan was the Avro 698.

F105s were never based in Europe!

Must have been dreaming then when they used to visit us at Gielenkirchen from their base at Spangdalem in 62/63.

Charlie Tango’s (WJ680) first public display when owned by Ron Mitchell was at Duxford in 1994. I took this pic of it back then at Duxford.

Hope this helps.