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I think that you can hear Ex-A sobbing into his lunchtime scotch, as he sees his beloved Shiny ten used as a tanker

Even with all its tanker bits added still a damned fine looking aircraft.

Take a look at the de-commissioned US air force base (Castle) near Merced, California on Google Earth and you will see a Vulcan sitting on display. This aircraft is equipped with the refuelling probe used on Black Buck.

My son and I stopped at the museum on one occasion and we were fortunate to meet one of the aircraft restoration team who went as far as to open the aircraft for us so that my son could take a look around the cockpit.

I think that the story of the nose probe tip being "borrowed" for Black Buck is probably common knowledge but it was interesting to hear the story from the American side from someone who was there during the event. Apparently the request to borrow the probe caused a rash of problems the main one being that technically it would be considered as the exportation of military equipment which is taken very seriously by both the US Department of Defense and also by the US State Department. It would have taken many weeks and oodles of paperwork to officially export the probe so somehow the formalities were conveniently forgotten and the probe made its way to UK in time for the big match.

After the show a nondescript heavy cardboard box arrived back in Castle containing the probe with a brief note "Thanks Yanks".

.

What was the rationale behind the decision not to equip RAF Voyagers with AAR receiving gear?

It was such a useful option during Black Buck and other ops and exercises that I'da thunk that it would have given tremendous operational flexibility in those 'unexpected' 'conflicts' in geographically remote places.

in Post#28 C16 wrote:Even rotary people sometimes have a go.

- surely a design flaw in allowing that much forward cyclic with a probe fitted? Did nobody think?

Boac wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 07, 2018 4:06 pm

in Post#28 C16 wrote:Even rotary people sometimes have a go.

- surely a design flaw in allowing that much forward cyclic with a probe fitted? Did nobody think?

The probe was the proverbial trunk extension well after the elephant had grown up and clearly the probe strike arose from a excessive input by the pilot probably induced by turbulence around the tanker. Hard to fault the helicopter designers methinks. It had all been going so well until the drogue was pushed down probably after encountering the edge of the rotor downwash and the pilot decided to chase it.

Quite interesting to see the outer edge of the downwash when hovering over grass as I can now say from experience.

Caco

Well it is a design fault to me, a bit like fitting a bigger prop on an aircraft without checking tip clearance.

Boac wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 07, 2018 8:11 pm

Well it is a design fault to me, a bit like fitting a bigger prop on an aircraft without checking tip clearance.

Good point, mind you, I would suggest that putting the long probe on was a later design compromise whose sub-optimal consequences should have been managed through training and the relevant SOP's.

I am a terrible sea lawyer Boac. My software faults are features, never bugs!

Caco

It was a quite ridiculous cyclic input. On some types of helicopters, especially those with two bladed teetering heads, it’s quite possible to cut your tail off with a similar aft cyclic input.

What was the rationale behind the decision...

Who's never done a Headquarters tour then?
I only did it for 4 months but a 2* decided I should learn how the World really worked and basically sat me in his In tray. My hair didn't know whether to stand on end, get ripped out, or fall out.

I could tell you, but if I did you might kill yourself.

To take an airline analogy, imagine if two VIPs turn up at the gate unexpectedly, so the airline rep decides to bump a party of two off to accommodate them. But there isn't a party of two, or even two singles, then somebody points out there are two pilots, so they bump them.

C16 wrote:it’s quite possible to cut your tail off with a similar aft cyclic input.

- goes to prove my dear old mum was right about hecolopeters.

Boac wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 08, 2018 7:01 am

C16 wrote:it’s quite possible to cut your tail off with a similar aft cyclic input.

- goes to prove my dear old mum was right about hecolopeters.

A manouevre like that would likely result in a tail strike on a R44 and would certainly do so on a R22.

Know your rotor, love your rotor, Whatever happens below rotor stays below rotor! - Robinson Dojo... follow the way of the Sycamore grasshopper... - Advice from sensi Phil to nincompoop would be pilot Caco...



http://www.morningtonsanfordaviation.co ... r-head.pdf

Caco

Madness, sheer madness............

I don't know how I survived 16,500hrs flying them.

Caco

Boac wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 07, 2018 8:11 pm

Well it is a design fault to me, a bit like fitting a bigger prop on an aircraft without checking tip clearance.

Or fitting a loo without checking oleo compression - Bassett.

Well loo and other crap. Got prop strikes taxiing on some peritracks. Solution - hack the tips off.

Cacophonix wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 15, 2018 5:51 pm

Caco

I have the DVD's! they came with the sound.

The Sqdn Ldr drawing a line from Kano to Cape Town is John Garstin AFC. He was the captain of the 1st non stop flight from UK to Singapore.
The flight he is illustrating was captained by Wing Co. Mike Beetham.

My part ended up on the cutting room floor So ended my career as a movie star.

The Grand International Premier was held at the Astra Cinema RAF Marham, I missed it as I was on leave, and never did see it until I bought the DVD.

Seeing as XD812 featured here is the 'Radar Fit'. It didn't have the Eureka/Rebecca Mk X fitted.

Classic film, ian. I love the complicated Nav planning we see there. I also did not realise that when I need a tanker, someone had been on the phone 'booking an appointment for me'. Cannot workout why they didn't just give me a phone.........it would surely have been easier.

A fascinating film. Just adding to the nautical flavour of the first part, the carrier featured is HMS Hermes, long before the ski-jump was added to the bow and she became the helicopter/Harrier carrier that went to the Falklands. She has a Scimitar on deck that appears to be from HMS Victorious but the Mk1 Sea Vixens are Hermes' own. The two Daring class Destroyers are HMS Daring (D05) and HMS Defender (D114). D84 is an older Battle class Destroyer, HMS Saintes. In 1962 she was the first of the three Destroyers shown to be decommissioned so that's the very latest date of the film.

FD2 will know more of this kind of thing than me but mention is made of the tiderace between Hermes and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship during the replenishment at sea (RAS). I believe there had to be a difference of a few degrees in the ships' headings as the venturi effect would otherwise tend to suck them together.

Re the earlier post with the video of a helicopter refuelling from a C-130

Boac wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 07, 2018 8:45 am

The fascinating thing about that footage is that the disk can tilt that far down.

Nothing to do with inflight refuelling but re the amount of disk tilt, there was an incident in the early 70's when a Bristow S-61 helicopter approached to land on the Glomar North Sea drilling ship off Aberdeen. He came in a bit fast and in the flare he caught the tailwheel in the safety net which ran around the deck. The helicopter hit the deck fairly hard, the main rotors chopped through the cockpit roof and cleanly swiped through the speed select handles for both engines.

Everything was still turning and burning but the engines couldn't be shut down. The ship's captain wanted the machine off his deck so the S-61 Captain offloaded all the passengers and the co-pilot. He then took off and ditched the machine nearby. The Captain was rescued by the ship's boat but being a boat hulled helicopter on a relatively calm sea the S-61 trundled around in circles for more than two hours until it eventually ran out of fuel. I can't remember whether it remained upright long enough to be recovered.

EDIT: A slightly different narrative to my recollection is here: Aviation Safety Net: G-AZNE - 4 April 1973 . The helicopter rolled over and sank once the engines stopped.