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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0472.PDF
472 FLIGHT, 8 April I960 FLYING IN THE VICTOR .. . checked. We climbed rapidly into the peaceful isolation of theupper atmosphere, our progress being controlled and plotted precisely by the navigators. Occasionally the ground could be seenthrough the dense haze below. Everything was quiet because there was no VHF radio background and the crew spoke little amongstthemselves. I glimpsed the coast as we turned north near the Wash and we then turned south to "bomb" a target at Arnhem inHolland. Near the Dutch coast we switched on VHF to warn (he Dutch of our approach. At our operating height we could hearWhite Waltham telling a Home Command pilot to follow the free lane to Reading and a Belgian requesting customs clearance atCoxyde. Behind those messages, the steady exchange of minor details by American pilots. Nothing can be said about the operation of the bombing radarand computers—indeed, I saw nothing of it because it was all done behind the curtain; a few quiet instructions to the pilot,a series of accurate control responses, a moment or two of tense waiting and then a click—bombs gone. It happened quickly andquietly. The attack itself, of course, is the culmination of a surprising amount of detailed day-to-day research, of hours ofpreparation and study and of years of experience. I once saw a radar picture of part of East Anglia and it looked like a stubbledchin. A practice target might be a manhole cover in a back street, but virtual direct hits are not uncommon. After Arnhem weturned north to another target at Groeningen. We were inter- cepted by an F-102, but we could easily have flown high abovehis ceiling. As we turned west for England, I momentarily spotted the Dutch canals lit by the sun and looking like crazed transparentplastic. Having been delayed at Cottesmore we had to forge ahead toreach our third target in time. Mach trim was switched on and speed increased very considerably. The Victor obviously handledwell. This attack was to be on something in East Anglia and was to be scored from the ground by precision radar. Even though wehad to turn in for a short run the equipment was flexible enough and the target study had been sufficiently careful to produce anextremely accurate attack. Miss distances are classified, but I gather that there was precious little miss in this case. From Holland to Scotland The three attacks completed, we continued northwards to theScottish area and flew various headings, checking equipment and making a radar reconnaissance. The bombing-navigation radarhas considerable range and photographs may be taken of the radar picture. With their newer radar, Victor B.2s will be able to coveran area equal to the whole of the Mediterranean in one sortie so that a count of all the ships in the area could be made. We combedthe Scottish area pretty thoroughly and took well over 100 pictures. On the way up to Scotland we had relaxed briefly and dug intoour meal boxes. Each contained a tin of soup wnich could be warmed up in an electric heater next to each crew position, abanana, an apple, chocolate and chewing gum and sandwiches enclosed in a sealed plastic envelope. A length of plastic tubingwas provided for drinking soup or for the orange juice which was issued in cardboard cartons. By this time we had been at wellover 40,000ft for almost three hours but, although I was wearing no special clothing, I was still perfectly comfortable. One fact emerged very clearly. It is extremely difficult to applyany sort of rules of the air when avoiding other aircraft at these heights and speeds. Unless a vapour trail is tracking directlyacross, it is almost impossible to distinguish its direction of travel for some time. Then the picture suddenly clears, leaving a fewseconds in which to decide whether and how to take avoiding action. We saw many aircraft, some of them Victors, criss-cross-ing around us. The Victor flies at 600 m.p.h. at over 45,000ft. Finally the clear blue of the sky dulled to grey and an ink-bluehaze rose up on our left as the earth's shadow slanted upwards and the ground sank into night below us. Our own evening lightlasted some minutes more, with our private blazing sun-set far to the right and then the night rose up and engulfed us too. Bynow we had been airborne for over three hours and we were heading southwards for home. We let down in the Cottesmoreapproach lane and made a radar-monitored descent to circuit height. A string of checks and we were in landing configuration,ready for a series of circuits. The instrument panels were glowing red under edge- and pillar-lighting. Ground radar talked us inas our own navigators plotted our direction, the two position reports coinciding almost exactly each time. The air brakes canbe inched out to any setting, are very powerful and seem to cause neither buffeting nor trim change. The nose flaps can also be setfor automatic operation at maximum CL at any Mach number below a preset value. Work for Proficiency The captain called for very small adjustments in percentage ofr.p.m. and we sailed in at a speed calculated by slide rule according to our weight. The e.g. had been maintained automaticallythroughout the flight as fuel fed from numerous wing and fuselage tanks, a slide-rule serving to check automatic proportioning. Afterone deliberate overshoot we made two roller landings, each obviously a simple procedure without excessive round-out orjuggling with controls. The Victor no longer lands itself, but the undercarriage with its tilted bogey cushions the touchdown well.There is plenty of urge to get off again and visibility remains excellent at all times. Finally, we settled down for the last time,opened the airbrakes and released the drag chute. Deceleration was powerful and we were able to drop the chute next to thewaiting recovery vehicle before taxying back to the now flood-lit dispersal and handing XH589 back to the crew chief. Proficiency in the V-force is a matter of continuous hard work.Each crew is classified as "combat," "select" or "select star," and each classification takes six months of consistent results to obtain.The moment the aircraft leaves the ground, the sortie counts, so that the groundcrew's work in servicing is an important factor.There is no chance to get used to targets because there are so many which have to be attacked in strict rotation that it takesmore than a year before a crew can attack one target a second time. By then the targets have probably been changed in anycase. Eighteen months is the shortest time in which any crew can reach select star standard and they must keep that standard upfor each quarter-year period. Everything is done to make the classification a genuine index of ability; and the bombing errorshave indeed been halved during the last two years. The scramble is a remarkable achievement for this kind ofaircraft, but is regularly practised. Virtually all the checks are completed and the aircraft then sealed. The crew remain closeat hand and, as soon as the alarm sounds, they enter the aircraft in a fixed order to perform carefully planned operations so that theengines are immediately started and the take-off made after a matter of seconds. Four Victors have been flown off a runway3 min 47 sec after the alarm. Most of this time is devoted to starting the engines in sequence but, if simultaneous startingcould be controlled from outside by the groundcrew the get-away would be almost immediate. I flew away from Cottesmore with a healthy respect for theV-force and particularly for the Victor. It has excellent handling qualities and is very popular with its crews. Its performance isoutstanding. Even the B.I is a formidable weapon and later mark? promise even more. A Victor B.I of No XV Sqn taxies out for a five-hour sortie from Cottesmore. Several days of intensive preparation precede the flight itself "Flight" photograph
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