I had a call today about the Vulcan. The operating club are desperately short of funds and the aircraft will be grounded on Friday unless they can raise enough money. I'm not going to blather on about this spectacular aircraft or their financial details but have a look at their web site
A fine aircraft John (I briefly worked on the B4505A navigation and bombing system trainer at Marham), but it takes government sponsored fear to keep a V bomber in the air.
NHH
I'm amazed that they managed to get it flying again so it is possible. I remeber seeing a Vulcan display when they were in service. It's an awesum aircraft. When one came over at low level, the sky went dark and the ground shook. Unfortunately I missed it's public apearances last year. I just hope I will get another chance this year. I've sent my donation in the hope of seeing it.
John
In message , John writes
I remember in particular a display at Mildenhall, when she set off several tens of thousands of car alarms at once in the car park!
I hope she'll fly again, but I fear the worst. If they can find £50 million to buy a painting, then they can find less than a tenth of that to keep the Vulcan flying.
There are several clips of the Vulcan in flight on YouTube; this one is of her first flight after restoration:-
I think you'll find that you're talking about two very different "they" 's.
BugBear
From what Google turns up, the painting appears to have been bought with combined Government and privately-raised money. I reckon a public contribution would thus be reasonable in the Vulcan's case.
I've been watching the =A3s clock up and they may yet make it. It will be tight though and they need all the help they can get.
John
Gentlemen,
All the V bombers had similar designed cockpits in fact inside a Victor you would be hard pushed to tell the difference of it to a Vulcan. Volunteering at Duxford and being an Air Cadet with 301 squadron Bury St Edmunds I got to sit in many aircraft cockpits and the smallest I found was the B52 where the seat cushion was actually the cockpit floor and if you wanted to test your fear of spaces then crawl down the tunnel between the front and rear of a B29 and for that matter the rear gun in an early B52 which if the plane got into difficulty could be blown off by the gunner as a form of ejection.
Nobody has mentioned that all of our V bombers carried I think five personnel but they only had two ejector seats, the rest had ejector cushion aids to push them to the door of the main hatch which if they got out then had to avoid the engine intakes.
Quick quiz, what was nicknamed the "Widow Maker" and what major safety device worked differently on the early type to the later type.
F104 Starfighter or the B26 Marauder, take your pick.
Peter
-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk
I remember that pilots with long femurs were not accepted for Service in English Electric Lightnings as ejection would take their legs off at the knees & make a nasty mess in the cockpit.
A friend who flew out of Boscombe Down in the seventies said that there was a neat sign pop riveted to the panel on one Frightning that he flew ........... "Undoing the straps & climbing out is not recommended on this aircraft"
Regards,
Kim Siddorn
They all had the 2 front + 3 rear layout and similar crew roles, but that's about as far as it goes. The Vulcan has a sizable step up to the front seats (especially with the "sunroof" open!) and the Victor has the forward tunnel leading down to the bomb aimer's nose position. The Valiant has a relatively roomy space without such things, except there's a pressure bulkhead against the pilots' toes. There's also the way that the control columns are appreciably different, especially the Vulcan's single-seater like "joystick". Then again, the control systems and their assistance mechanisms themselves are quite different, which must have made a big difference to how they handled.
Gentlemen, The modern day widow maker was the F104 and the safety difference was on the early type the ejector seat went out the bottom and the later out through the top. As regards the V Bomber cockpits I was talking in general.
Next quiz question, what is a miss Russell's orifice and what was it used for and who was she.
Well, as a student of the Merlin engine, I ought to know these & do ;o)) Beatrice Shilling - this'll do it ,,,,,,,,,
- and I recommend you to the biography Negative Gravity: A Life of Beatrice Shilling by Mathew Freudenberg . Soft bound, 136 pages. You can get it on Amazon or from the publishers Matthew Freudenberg, Charlton Orchards, Creech St. Michael, Somerset, TA3 5PF
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Next!
Regards,
Kim Siddorn
wrote something !
I have only just caught up with this one !
£956,835 as at mid-morning today.Hopefully the website will shortly update.
Regards Pete
As the deadline of the end of today approaches, the Pledge Campaign has this morning (11.00am) pa956835ssed £956,835, pledged by over 9,821 supporters, and so has excellent prospects of passing its goal of £1million imminently. v
Gentlemen,
May I recommend the book which spawned the question, it is "Portrait of a legend Spitfire" ISBN 978-0-7195-6875-6 first out in 2007, paperback 2008, written by Leo McKinstry, in my view one of the best on the subject I have read. He discusses the politics through to the design, testing and use and includes the pilots view be it RAF or Luftwaffe. An excellent read.
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