Avro Vulcan Nostalgia - more Haynes inspired stuff

[ian16th]

How about this thread being renamed 'V-Bomber Nostalgia'?

[Cacophonix]

How about this thread being renamed 'V-Bomber Nostalgia'?

If Alison feels so inclined to change this thread title I wouldn't have any objection at all to that good notion.

Caco

[Alisoncc]

What and allow the other two also-rans into our thread?

The tin triangle was the ultimate in cutting edge technology in it's day, and Alison has had a love affair with them since she saw one fall out of the sky in Sept 1958. In ten days it will be sixty years ago exactly.

Remember the first time I climbed up the ladder into the beast in 1963, accompanied by the shift Snr Tech Radio, my immediate boss. He had shown me how to hook up external power, battery cart (28v) and a Houchin (115v 400Hz), and now I was sitting in the AEO's chair about to do a HF test call to Gander. Me, fresh out of training. Yeh !!! All of this was beyond my wildest dreams. Going on to a bollocking much later from the flight commander for running the ECM during the BBC TV evening news broadcast. The Station Commander no less had rung in and complained.

Ian, why not start a Victor thread?

Alison

[Sisemen]

My first was the day after leaving training and being assigned to Bomber Command Development Unit at Finningley. “Do you have a civilian mac Sisemen?” My new warrant officer asked. When I replied in the affirmative I was tasked to go into our hangar and go wherever I liked - particularly into the cockpit of a B2 that had landed wheels up and was being repaired by an Avro contractors party - to see whether I would be picked up.

I got into the cockpit and was happily chatting to a bod sitting in the pilot’s seat before I was nicked and hauled out of there!

[ian16th]

What and allow the other two also-rans into our thread?

The tin triangle was the ultimate in cutting edge technology in it's day, and Alison has had a love affair with them since she saw one fall out of the sky in Sept 1958. In ten days it will be sixty years ago exactly.

Remember the first time I climbed up the ladder into the beast in 1963, accompanied by the shift Snr Tech Radio, my immediate boss. He had shown me how to hook up external power, battery cart (28v) and a Houchin (115v 400Hz), and now I was sitting in the AEO's chair about to do a HF test call to Gander. Me, fresh out of training. Yeh !!! All of this was beyond my wildest dreams. Going on to a bollocking much later from the flight commander for running the ECM during the BBC TV evening news broadcast. The Station Commander no less had rung in and complained.

Ian, why not start a Victor thread?

Alison

Why not start a Victor thread, well I never touched one!

But let me tell you a Victor story.

In Oct 1956 as a newly minted 19-year-old Cpl of 2 months seniority, I was posted to Coningsby. It was normal to get posted on promotion in those days.
The base was re-opening after being upgraded to V-Bomber standard and we had 57 Sqdn with B2 Canberra's posted in to 'work up' the station.
We were due to become one of the 1st Victor stations.
To help meet this requirement I was sent to Gaydon on a 1 week Victor course. This was a 100% classroom and blackboard course.
Gaydon didn't have any Victors.
Later I went to Yatesbury and did a Rad Alt V course, on my return I was greeted that night in the Cpls Club by an Admin guy asking where the h**l I'd been? As I was posted to Fontainbleau!
Seeing as Fontainbleau was NATO HQ, It was odd that they needed an Air Radar Fitter.
Anyway, next morning I went to SHQ to arrive from detachment to be informed that I was posted to Transport Command HQ Unit RAF Uphaven, for detachment to RAF Liaison Party Istres. Not Fontainbleau, but it was in France.

Soon after my departure the expensive new runways at Coningsby started cracking, so the base was closed again and it never did get any Victors, but after some years it did have Vulcan's, so I assume the Electronics Centre was put to some use.

Me, as I've regaled on this forum, I did once work on one Vulcan, changing a Green Satin, and I did spend over 4 years, in 2 sessions, on 214 Sqdn with Valiant's.

But I never touched the only V-Bomber that I was trained on, the HP Victor.

[FD2]

On the subject of Victors - no doubt you've seen this:



You can imagine the flow of adrenaline in the cockpit!

[ian16th]

Ah yes! The fast taxi that got out of control!

[Pontius Navigator]

Ian, didn't know Coningsby was late for that reason. I think it didn't open until 1962 and closed 'temporarily' in 1964 for runway resurfacing. We boltholded to Cottesmore, a former 2 sqn wing, with 3 sqns. IX and 12 only got half a set of hangar offices each.

[ian16th]

PN,
I never went back to Coningsby after Sept 57, and I only repeat what I heard.

I was enjoying life too much at Istres/Orange to wonder why Coningsby never got Victors. Coningsby did have visiting Victors do circuits & bumps, and on one occasion a Victor landed and our Station Master got off! Otherwise we only had 57 Sqdn with Canberra B2's for the time I was there.

One oddity of my time at Coningsby, it was the only time I witnessed a galantry medal being earned!

Brian 'Paddy' Murphy and his Fire Section arrived at the scene, after I had very infectively emptied one of ARSF's foam extinguishers, on the fire.

Paddy was lying on his back pointing his hose up the back hatch at the seat of the fire, not the bomb bay as the citation says, and the a/c was burning through and collaped, a second or two before he got out of the way.

I believe that there is now a building at Coningsby named in Paddy's honour.

[G-CPTN]

Brian 'Paddy' Murphy

Do we assume that Cpl Murphy (as was) has now passed-on - or he has sought to sell his medals to fund his life?

[ian16th]

Brian 'Paddy' Murphy

Do we assume that Cpl Murphy (as was) has now passed-on - or he has sought to sell his medals to fund his life?

I assume that he has, as at the time he was old for a Cpl, probably about 30 or so. If I'm correct, and he is alive, he will be past 90 now.
He was a morose character who sat drinking on his own in the Cpl's Club, while we 'younger set' sampled the delights of Boston Gliderdrome.