Inside The Cockpit - Avro Vulcan B.2

Video from the channel Military Aviation History about Avro Vulcan, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 24:55. Language: English. Video type: Onboard.

A tour of the interior of the Royal Air Force Museum's Vulcan B.2 in London, preceded by a look back at the aircraft's history. It starts with the rear crew compartment, showing the radar navigator's, plotter's and air electronics officer's (AEO) stations, then moves to the two pilots' cockpit. Many instruments are missing from the rear stations because they were removed from the fleet so the five Vulcans used in the Falklands could fly.

The radar navigator handles radio and bombing with a bombing computer, while the AEO operates the countermeasures and a periscope to check weapon release. There are food warmers under the table and only two small windows, to preserve the contrast of the radar screen and protect against nuclear flash. Under the co-pilot's seat is the Mk 1 visual bomb-aiming station, which later served as storage and held the Omega navigation equipment during the Falklands campaign. To get airborne within four minutes, a single switch started all four Olympus engines at once. The control column is pushed and pulled rather than pivoted, the machmeter reaches Mach 1.3, and there are elevon indicators, an emergency turbine release, engine fire extinguisher buttons and flash curtains. The pilots have Martin-Baker ejection seats, while the three rear crew members exit manually.

The Vulcan originated from Specification B.35/46 and was tested with the Avro 707s, scaled-down deltas with 51° of sweep, one of which crashed in 1949, killing its pilot. The RAF ordered the B Mk 1 in 1952 and accepted it in 1956, with 230 OCU and No. 83 Squadron as the first units; together with the Victor and the Valiant it formed the V-force. The VX770 prototype broke up during a low pass. From 1963 the B.2 carried the Blue Steel missile, but Soviet air defences pushed it towards low-level flight, the Royal Navy took over the nuclear deterrent role, and the Tornado gradually replaced it. In 1982, on the verge of retirement, it returned to action in the Falklands with refuelling probes recovered from storage — one of them from a museum in the United States — and a sixth crew member who guided the pilot during air-to-air refuelling.