Its nice to think that so many remember although for most it seems that one day a year is enough- it would be nice to think that some would show concern over those lads coming home in one form or other from the current conflict coz sure as hell our politicians don’t. Betrayal of the military covenent anyone? You shut the military hospitals and the NHS can have the money but all you brave lads can have priority treatment etc. From personal experience it doesn’t work.

And No I don’t do religion- causes too many wars so today at 11 o’clock I stopped what I was doing and thought of all those I had served with in more than 20 years in the RAF.

Absent Friends

>>How long did they maintain inverted flight for prior to recovering, presumably with the second half roll?<<

Seconds only – half roll then back again- I have no idea why the aircraft was stooging about up there although I think it was a 44 crew-I know it wasn’t one of ours!

>>overstressed<<
Who said anything about overstress- just a few pulled rivets- replaced quite a few in my time

>>Were you on board for it?<<
Much more sense- ground crew

>>standard display routine<<
As said before- the crew were doing their own thing- it was 35 years or so ago and it stuck in my memory
as I had never seen it happen before or since.

>>colourful than they actually were.<<

Were you there- I don’t think so!

Cheers
Mad Jock

Yep – only a couple until the powers that be noticed and said stop it- come and see staish. Very agile bird the Vulcan- far more capable that most realise. Couple of examples- F-16’s on visit to Belgium on sales tour- big triangular thing outflew them quite comfortably or on a trip home from Germany flying 7th seat the captain decided to fly a low level attack sortie over one of the welsh bombing ranges so that the co could practise his SFOM targeting. We in the back got the briefing from the captain and settled down for a bumpy ride- only thing he forgot to mention was the max rate low level turn on a wing tip to turn onto the bomb run- unlike the ASC i was so glad that I hadn’t had a vasactomy- his face was a picture of strngulated agony- had one hell of a job getting out of the aircraft when we taxied in at Waddo 🙂

Cheers
Mad Jock

Ah the joys and delights of standing on Delta dispersal in that long hot summer of 75 watching a 44 sqdn bird practising half rolls at 10,000 feet above us- brilliant.

cheers
mad jock

The first batch of B.2’s were not originally capable of carrying Blue Steel- when that weapon became available those aircraft underwent the mod programme to allow them to carry the weapon while those on the production line had the mods incorporated before issue. It was originally intended that roling between Blue Steel and conventional would be a quick change thing however practical realities proved different. Although the cabling etc was installed in the bomb bay as were the extra fuel gallery connections swapping between roles would turn out to be a right pain. Not only were the bomb bay doors replaced but a cooling, hydraulic and electrical package needed fitting plus the nose and tail fairing panels needed fitting to replace the original panels. Given the amount of work needed to rerole it was decided that the Blue Steel aircraft would remain unchanged especially as getting the bomb doors off was a nightmare- only did this once – never again. The list of mods required was quite extensive and included seperate items for the front and rear spar- mountings for the services crates plus changes to the switching titles for the bomb bay doors which became fin gap doors- in fact the last aircraft to carry the fin gap door tags didn’t change until early 1974. Just to make life even more complicated some aircraft such as XM575 had a partial Skybolt panel fit in the Nav area so it sported relics at one time of conventional, Blue Steel and Skybolt.

Cheers
Mad Jock