i’ve got pictures of me on the vulcan and the shackleton at RAF Valley,back in the mid 80’s, i’ll post them up when i get them dug out!

sad news indeed, i met him a couple of times over the last 20 or so years, both professionally (whilst i was in the RAF) and socially ( at VSCC meetings), he was always willing to chat, and always interesting.

just about all C130’s left the production lines with the outerwing hard points built in, and from the ‘H’ model onwards the fuel plumbing and associated wiring was a standard fit along the trailing edge . so its relatively easy to either fit outer wing fuel tanks or drogue units.

the lake at RAF Valley is still off limit for swimming and fishing due to the ammount of stuff dumped there at the end of the war.
ammunition, vehicles and some say aircraft were dumped there, and i know that when other more modern aircraft have crashed in the lake, recovery of the wreckage wasn’t as complete as normal due to the hazzards in the lake.

burnelli also had a blended fuselage/flying wing back in the 30’s, it even got into commercial use.

http://72.14.221.104/search?q=cache:YxazzifFzYIJ:www.aircrash.org/burnelli/nyt1941.htm+burnelli+flying+wing&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=2

ELP you don’t half talk some crap!
just vague generalisations, and stuff that can be found in any magazine or on any website.
the ‘j’ did have some initial software problems, but name me any modern aircraft thats entered into servive, and not had software problems. these problems weren’t enough to keep it on the gound, or restrict its operations.

there were problems with the ceramic linings on the engines, but they were soon fixed, other problems on the engine side were caused by the operators not using them correctly.

the RAF’s ‘j’ s can do anything a ‘k’ (‘e’ model for you) can do (yes, even rough strip landings), and a lot more besides.

the only restriction on the current ‘j’ fleet is they can’t do SF work, but thats not the airfrmes fault, its just because the haven’t fitted all the special equipment that the SF aircraft have.

it seems to me you are letting all the politics get to you, the politics dont make it a bad aircraft, and just about all the faults you are banging on about have been fixed years ago.

the ‘j’ is now a reliable and good performer. and before you think i’m biased in any way, i fix ‘B’,’E’ , ‘H’ and ‘J’ models for a living, so i can make comparisons right across the range.