The Avro Vulcan Strategic Bomber - Overview

Video from the channel Johnny Johnson about Avro Vulcan, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 9:02. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

General overview of the Avro Vulcan, the British delta-wing strategic bomber. Alongside its operational history, the video covers its appearances in film, such as "Satellite in the Sky" (1956) and "Thunderball" (1965), and in video games.

Avro designed it to specification B.35/46, which called for a nuclear-capable aircraft able to reach the Soviet Union from British and allied bases, beyond the range of air defences. It was one of the RAF's three V bombers and the most technically advanced, which also made it the riskiest. The delta wing was refined using scaled-down aircraft, the Avro 707s. The first full-scale flight, in August 1952, went well, and that same year the aircraft was shown at Farnborough. That airframe was lost in 1958 during a display at RAF Syerston due to a structural failure. The RAF operated the Vulcan from 1956 to 1984. The B1 arrived in 1956, followed in 1960 by the B2, with more powerful engines, a larger wing and electronic countermeasures. From 1962, armed aircraft stood at quick-reaction alert, required to take off within four minutes. By the mid-1960s, the Vulcan had switched to low-level flying to evade radar.

The B2 reached 1,037 km/h and had a range of 7,400 km. In the 1982 Falklands War, the Black Buck raids flew from Ascension Island on round trips of about 16 hours. Three targeted Stanley's runway and facilities, and two went after radars with Shrike missiles. One aircraft had to land in Brazil for lack of fuel. In the mid-1970s, nine airframes were converted for maritime reconnaissance (B2 MRR), and towards the end of its service, six became K2 tankers. 19 of the 134 built survive. The full-scale replica built for "Thunderball" was blown up with explosives and is today a dive site near Nassau.