Vulcan news

It's trickier to do from the stealth viewpoint; ideally you want as much of the wing to have a straight leading and trailing edge as possible, and match all leading and trailing edge angles into as few directions as you can, so that radar return is high when things line up exactly flat-edge on to the radar. Such a situation is pretty much instantaneous, and having it move even a degree or two off of a perfect parallel intercept angle to the radar signal reflects it away. But this isn't supposed to have B-2 style features like that, (I was shooting for a design using something along the lines of 1965-1975 technology in regards to stealth ideas) but rather radar-reduction smoothed edges like the A-12/SR-71 or D-21 drone; so unless the leading edge kink of the Vulcan wing needs be that abrupt (and if it did, you'd expect some sort of a upper wing fence in relation to it) a smoother transition should work as well in relation to critical Mach number of the airflow over the wing leading edge, and would indeed be more optimized in regards to smooth airflow over the whole wing leading edge along its length.

The "Super Vulcan" would have enough interior wing area area to allow uprated engines to be installed without major moldline changes, in much the same way the the XB-35 was converted to the YB-49 without much change to its wings, despite moving from piston to jet engines. Going to high-bypass turbofans for propulsion would mean moving the engines forward in the wing till the fan section itself was located in the thickest portion of the wing, leading to longer exhaust ducts behind the engines to the trailing edge; but that does allow better mixing of external air with the exhaust, leading to lower and more uniform exhaust temperatures as the exhaust exits the wide "platypus" nozzle over the trailing edge of the wing. Also, the Venturi effect as the high speed air traveling over the top of the wing enters the NACA intake exhaust cooling ducts located over and ahead of the long exhaust ducts results in increased exhaust mass flow via entrainment, while at the same time decreasing ambient air pressure over the top of the wing, and generates a smoother, more nearly laminar air flow over the wing roots - increasing lift and reducing overall wing wetted-surface airflow friction drag.

Pat

Was there a maintenance requirement difference between the two that favored the Vulcan as the bomber, and the Victor as the tanker? It would seem that any range in excess of that to hit Moscow from Britain would be superfluous for the intended mission. In fact, that needed to be only a one-way mission, as there probably would be very little left of Britain to return to in that scenario. Certainly, a war off of the coast of Argentina probably didn't enter into the minds of the designers of the "V" bombers when they were drawing up their specs. Jorge Luis Borge had the best quote about that war I ever heard: "Two bald men fighting over a comb." :-D

Pat

They are both capable and look stunning.

The two best 1950s designed bombers

The most striking feature of the take-off was the immediate rendezvous with a waiting tanker. My dad was told they used half their fuel load just getting off the ground and I have no reason to doubt that.

(kim)

But you don't want to move the engines *too* far forward, otherwise the first stage compressor becomes visible. Can you imagine the radar return from a head-on lock on a Harrier?

Airfix have just released a 1/48 kit of the B(I)8 version, which is apparently flying off the shelves. They will be producing new-tool 1/72 versions of all marks over the next couple of years. I'll be buying 'em...

I used to be acquainted with the CO of 39 Sqn, which was the last RAF squadron, flying the PR9. He reckoned that the PR9 was universally loved by air and groundcrews. He also reckoned that the reason they lasted so long in RAF service was that they simply didn't acrue much fatigue. At operational altitude with the engines at cruise power, the design was such so that there were simply no components anywhere near their resonant frequency. Apparently the aircraft went almost perfectly quiet.

He wasn't nealy as complimentary about the T4 version though. He used to refer to it as "the bastard bitch from Hell". The story goes that during the Canberra's heyday, an experienced Canberra pilot was undergoing a requalification flight. As he taxied his T4 towards the flightline, the aircraft was momentarily lined up on another T4.

"What would you do if the brakes failed at this moment?" asked the instructor.

The pilot replied "I'd open the throttles and write two of the bastards off!"

The Victor was somewhat unsuited to the low-level role for the same reason that the Valiant was. The Vulcan wing structure was milled out of a solid chunk of metal and so was built like the proverbial brick ****house.

That sort of thing is an eduring characteristic of British aircraft. The first Tornados in squadron service used to empty their fin tank getting off the deck.

That's also the way it's done on US Aircraft Carriers, to cut the weight down on the catapult launch.

...when we first took the T-45A to the boat, they had to design an new set of steam baffling for the cat in order to keep the stroke from ripping the thing apart, it's so light in comparison to anything else on the deck.

Yeah, it's going to need some sort of intake goodies like the B-1B to hide the fan section. The Harrier's intakes always looked like the perfect thing for someone to get sucked into and sliced into luncheon meat. I once read something about a VTOL Vulcan derivative with a hoard of RR RB.108 engines in the bomb bay. About the time that engine was made, Britain went completely off its rocker over VTOL projects.

Pat

I was looking at a large large cutaway of one earlier today in my "Rand McNally Encyclopedia Of Military Aircraft" and the fuel tanks in the wing are unusual in design; five ovoid tubes rather than a "wet" wing. That wing has great deal of internal framework in it; it looks very strong, but also very time-consuming to build.

Pat

That fin looks way too big for the aircraft (it looks like it's the size of a wing); it certainly can't help RCS from the side. I'm surprised they didn't look into a twin vertical fin layout.

Pat

At one time I had two Italeri kits, the B-57B model and the 'G' along with the still unfinished Frog B(I).8, Matchbox PR.9 and the original Airfix version. I did contemplate adding an ancient Frog PR.7 but the asking price was too steep. I also had the Revell 1/85th 'B' in SEAC camo. I liked the plane and still do. Shame we still don't have Oxmoron with us as he flew the thing in the AF.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

No no no. Looks like a shark from a distance. Scares the enemy more that way, you see.

The only VTOL bomber project of the period I've seen was the "low altitude bomber" which had six centrally mounted lift engines but only stub wings. It didn't look anything like a Vulcan and the whole project was dropped when STOL* was incorporated into the TSR2 spec causing all kinds of problems for the latter.

*STOL in this case was defined as the ability to use the same take-off distance as a DC3

Given the relatively large wing area of the Vulcan I would have thought a pair of huge lift fans in the wings was a more realistic approach á la Mirage.

(kim)

I reckon that the only time VTOL with a usable payload will become feasible is after someone invents an anti-gravity engine.

Here is one for you .......Its even in 1:72 scale (:>

Helicopters do it all the time...

...or...

It's a lot less bovver in the hovver...

Wulf