There is an active TSR2 thread on pprune at the moment in the military section. You could ask there. Ventral tank? What about the bombbay?

I read a ‘new to me’ Shute a year back. Set in south Australian and Tasmania with the double story line and cliff hanger, litterally.

Can’t remember the name, but I am sure you will, one plot I think concerned a DC6 or DC7 crew from the days of large, constituted crews and one crew flying the route the main plot was insertion of medical help into an upcountry hill farm in Tasmania, in atrocious weather, in an Auster.

Unlike the modern 400 page door stops the paper rationed brevity of a 190 page Shute is something to behold. No reptition from the previous book, no repetition of descriptive narrative, no cut n paste a la Jeff (sic) Archer. Just a good, tight, gripping yarn.

In some respects the part on 1950s air travel is an historical narrative in its own right.

ME543, thank you for the correction, it was from memory as I didn’t have the book to hand. I have now.

His narrative style is novelistic rather than chronological. Rather than take us through one mission from preping the aircraft, mission planning, kitting up, pre-flight etc etc he feed small pieces of information that eventually build up to a big picture. He does not tie any raid to a date so it is not possible to say with any certainty to which Berlin raid his narrative refers.

I will give a flavour of his style as he leads us to the Berlin raid.

“Operation postponed!”
. . .
“For two hours – wait in the mess.”

By the time we reached the mess, it was fully dark and raining heavily. The crews had taken off their flying clothing and were lolling in chairs like men reprieved. We had been told to return to the crew room at 9 o’clcok, but at 7.30 the tannoy demanded we report immediately.

. . .

“A scrub?”

“Command is determined that you’ll go.”

. . .

The forecast was gloomy in the extreme: cloud heaped on cloud to 15,000 feet: a front across the North Sea; a low icing level.

. . .

The wing commander said “You must leave immediately. Navigators can complete their flight plans in the aircraft.”

. . .

Soon after the engines started I felt a prod from Graham. “here’s the 500.” He thrust a grimy file of papers into my hand to be passed to Geoff. A moment later they came back with G Maddern pencilled in the usual place, indcating his acceptance of the aircraft.

[This is the first time he has mentioned an aircraft being signed for.]

. . .

When I plugged in my headphones I heard the vpoice of the duty controller. this was unusual, as we were observing radio silence.

“All aircraft standby! The flarepath is changing to runway zero six.”

“Hell, there’ll be some fun now!”

In a few moments an aircraft broke silence.

“Control from H Harry, permission to switch off – my engines are overheating.”

There were sharp exchanges with control, then the pilot’s abrupt decision, “H Harry – I’m switching off.”

Other aircraft began reporting the same difficulty, but the more experienced men were silent. On other aerodromes the same trouble was being reported. A wind change along the east coast had necessitated the change in direction of take-off. In many case whole lines of ‘planes standing nose to tail had to turn about in the darkness. On one squadron this resulted in such chaos that the operation was cancelled; on another, only three got away. At Elsham we were more fortunate, only two crews failing to take off.

At 0040 Berlin filled the southern horizon.

“Not as bad as the Valley,” remarked Doug drily, “Not as concentrated.”

“I don’t need it no more damn’ concentrated than that!”

“How long before we bomb, navigator?”

“Three minutes.”

“Funny; it seems quiet.”

We continued towards the target, but although we reached the edge of the search light belt the city remained unmolested.

“Did you check your watch, navigator?”

“At final briefing – so did you.”

“Well, I make it forty-two and the attack was supposed to start at thrity-eight.”

“Forty-two is right. Probably the Pathfinders have boobed.”

“We’ll wait out here until something happens.”

For 15 minutes we circled Berlin. We did not know then that the attack had been put back 15 minutes; somehow the message had never reached us. For those 15 minutes 103 Sqn had Berlinto themselves. At fifty-four a Pathfinder marker was laid. A Lancaster dived on it and the attack began.

We heard the next morning that double the weight of bombs had been dropped as on the worst raid of the London blitz. Thirty-three aircraft were missing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That was the whole story of that raid. I would suggest that “A Lancaster dived on it” was not actually a dive in a sense of changin height but a ‘dive’ as in ‘pounce’, grab or get in quick.

Fifteen minutes just stooging around – balls the size of cannon balls.

the best one ive heard that he’s told me is of a vulcan going vertical over the middle of the base in the dead of night, after the crew had got into an argument with some AAF F86 pilots about them not being able to manouvre the vulcan like their F86’s, so the squadron leader ( i believe was his rank ) got his crew out to his aircraft (all of them had supposedly had a few) gets the ground crew to wind her up, and off the go on takeoff. my father meanwhile is asleep in a makeshift radar tent in the middle of the base, when suddenly there is a DEAFENING noise and the tent is going crazy flapping and swaying about. my father thinking that this was an earthquake, promptly falls back to sleep again. anyway the following morning, sat in the mess and one of his friends asks him if he heard the noise, to which he obviously replied yes, and his friend told him the above story. when he told me, i couldnt stop laughing (i believe the squadron leader was dismissed :eek:) ill get him to email me whatever he can think of 🙂

Nashio,

Nice story but not quite true. As in all good stories there is a germ of truth.

<> near enough vertical but not in the in the dead of night.

<>

Absolutely true.

<< so the squadron leader ( i believe was his rank )>>

No.

In those days, Oct/Nov 64, V-bomber sqns only had one sqn ldr and ours was in UK. In Butterworth we had a wg cdr and it weren’t us. 🙂

<>

DEFINITELY NOT

By all means the bet was set up in the bar with beer talking but not when flying.

<>

Was his name Pennington :)?

The actual bet was whether the F86 could out manouevre the Vulcan. It was agreed that they would take off together and se ehow long it took the F86 to nail to the Vulcan.

The Vulcan captain, it could have been Ricky Crowder, then asked if the F86 would like to take-off first or second. Following the Vulcan down the runway would have been like catching fish in a barrel to the F86 driver said he would go first. He planned a quick 180 and guns kill.

The F86 duly rolled followed 30 seconds later by the Vulcan. The F86 accelerated to 300 kts and turned back at 2000 feet. The Vulcan maintained its 170kts after rotate. As the F86 passed under the Vulcan it was at about 3000 feet with the Vulcan passing 7000 feet.

Game, set, match, and Tigers in the bar.

We had a similar game with a Javelin. We chickened out of a simulated night turning fight at 48000 feet. We didn’t realise the Javelin was maxed at 25000 feet.

Laurie, it will be in the Journal of the Royal Institute of Navigation although I can email a copy soon.

As for the radius of action, I would not be as generous as the Encylopedia of WMA. There are many open sources that are complete nonsense. For instance the operational data for the Vulcan used by HQ FEAF planning staffs was more akin to the Observer’s Book of Aircraft.

An assumption had been made that a Mark 2 had to be better than a Mark 1 which completely overlooked the fact that the Mark 2 was designed to LIFT 2 Skybolt missiles. It was not designed to fly higher, faster or further than a Mark 1. The only thing it did do better than a Mark 1 was climb!

The ROA quoted was pretty near identical to the Vulcan.

As it’s fiction I will go with the B36. Seen it, touched it, would love to get in it.

Weight was a critical feature of all the Nimrods which is why the MRA4 has been wholly reworked.

To save weight on the AEW3 they reskinned the cabin floor with thinner metal and then added a carpet – this was lighter.

Overland the radar was very sensitive and would indeed pick up vehicles etc but then any radar will pick up returns from land and a doppler radar will pick up returns from moving vehicles – it is a question of processing to pick up wanted from unwanted returns. Helicopters overland, flying at vehicle speeds could easily hide.

The E3 of course has a 60s vintage radar whereas the Nimrod was newer and therefore a greater technical risk. Its Cassegrain antena was said to be partof the problem.