V Bombers: Avro Vulcan, Handley Page Victor, And Vickers Valiant, The Last British Cold War Bombers

Video from the channel DroneScapes about Avro Vulcan, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 51:47. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

A documentary about the V-force, the three four-engined bombers with which the RAF maintained British nuclear deterrence: the Vickers Valiant, the Avro Vulcan and the Handley Page Victor. It combines narration with interviews with test pilots, factory technicians and crew members.

After 1945, Bomber Command relied on the Avro Lincoln and the Boeing B-29s lent by the United States, which were not aircraft for the nuclear age. In January 1947, jet bombers were requested capable of penetrating at high altitude and carrying a 10,000-pound weapon, and that same year the US Atomic Energy Act cut off nuclear cooperation, forcing the United Kingdom to develop its own arsenal. The first to fly was the Vickers 660, later named Valiant, on 18 May 1951 with Mutt Summers at the controls. The Avro 698, the future Vulcan, flew on 30 August 1952 with Roly Falk, who days later rolled it at Farnborough. The Victor, with its crescent wing, flew on 24 December 1952 with Hedley Hazelden and was the first heavy bomber to exceed the speed of sound. On 11 October 1956, a Valiant dropped a Blue Danube bomb over Maralinga, and the following year the Grapple thermonuclear tests began.

The Vulcan B.1 entered service with No. 83 Squadron at Waddington in July 1957. Buffeting during high-altitude manoeuvres was corrected with a kink in the wing's leading edge, which was then applied to all Vulcans. Avro received the Blue Steel missile contract in March 1956; the shooting down of Gary Powers's U-2 in 1960 and the cancellation of Skybolt in November 1962 led the V-force to switch to low-level penetration, between 1,000 and 50 feet. Crews lived on quick-reaction alert (QRA), with readiness times of 15, 5 and 2 minutes. Cracks in the wing spar forced the Valiants to be grounded from early 1965, and the Victors took over in-flight refuelling duties. In 1982, Vulcans attacked the Falklands with the support of eleven Victor tankers per mission. The Vulcan retired in 1984, and the Victor, after supporting the Gulf War, was the last to leave RAF service.