V bomber
The three jet-powered strategic bombers of the British Royal Air Force were called V-bombers . They were developed in the late 1940s, put into service in the 1950s, and all had a V as the first letter of the type designation; Quotation (Rowland White): "Along with the Vulcan and a third bomber, the Vickers Valiant, the Victor had made up the RAF's V-bomber force." All three types of aircraft were designed for the use of nuclear weapons , but could also use conventional ones Carrying drop and later (apart from Valiant ) also guided weapons .
The V bombers were a new generation of British bomber aircraft construction and replaced the piston engine-powered , relatively inexpensive and mass-produced heavy bombers of the Second World War such as the Avro Lancaster , the Handley Page Halifax , the Short Stirling and also those previously by the Americans delivered B-29 .
A comparable aircraft of its time was the Soviet Tu-16 .
However , they lost their role as a strategic nuclear weapon carrier at the latest by the end of the 1960s due to the increasing efficiency of modern air defense . As the backbone of the British nuclear force in the Cold War they were by the nuclear submarines of the Resolution-class submarine replaced by the United States delivered Polaris missiles carried.
After that, they were given other tasks as strategic long-range reconnaissance aircraft , tanker aircraft and conventional free-fall bombers. In particular, the Handley Page HP80 Victor, stationed as part of the V-bomber forces in Norfolk, and the Victor K2 of the 55th and 57th Squadrons were used for air refueling purposes, while the Vulcans at Waddington Air Base had not been assigned this task before. In these roles, they were also used in some conflicts; Quote (Rowland White): "For the last ten years <1972-1982>, though, the remaining Victors had served exclusively as air-to-air refueling tankers" ,
This type family formed the high point of independent British aircraft construction - and turned out to be the beginning of its end. After the V-bombers and the later BAC-TSR-2 disaster, the Royal Air Force only procured joint projects such as the Jaguar , the Tornado or the Eurofighter in addition to the native Harrier , Buccaneer and Hawk models due to the enormous costs . This development ultimately meant that the great British aviation pioneers Avro (1963), Handley Page (1970) and Vickers (merged into BAE Systems ) had to give up.
The planes
- Vickers 667 Valiant (first flight: 1951)
- Handley Page HP80 Victor (first flight: 1952)
- Avro 698 Vulcan (first flight: 1952)
The V-bomber fleet reached its quantitative peak in June 1964 when 50 Valiants , 39 Victors, and 70 Vulcans were in active service. The Valiant was used for the first British nuclear weapons tests, but then quickly converted to a tanker, had the shortest service life and had to be taken out of service in 1964 due to material fatigue. The Victor were after leaving the Valiants converted into a tanker and taken out of service until the 1993rd At 35, it had the longest service life of the three types of aircraft. Only the Vulcan remained mostly in its original role as a bomber and was finally retired in 1984. Thus all V-bombers are now decommissioned.
Combat missions
During the Suez Crisis in 1956, Valiants attacked Egyptian airfields. The base for these attacks was Luqa in Malta , which at that time was still a British colony. Between 1962 and 1966 two Victor were used as bombers during the Borneo conflict .
Certainly the last and for the Vulcan also the first combat missions flew the remaining V-bombers in 1982 during the Falklands War as part of Operation Black Buck . A Vulcan was successfully used as a bomber and eleven Victor as a tanker to attack the runway of the Port Stanley airfield from Ascension 6,250 km away . During later missions, radar positions with guided missiles of the type AGM-45 Shrike were attacked.
Technical data in comparison
| Parameter | Avro Vulcan 698 B.MK 2 | HP Victor BMk.2 | Vickers 667 Valiant |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Medium bomber | ||
| crew | 5 (+1 tank operator ) | 5 | 5 |
| drive | 4 × Rolls-Royce Olympus Mk103 (88.9 kN each) |
4 × Rolls-Royce Conway 201 (87.88 kN each) |
4 × Rolls-Royce RA.28 Avon (44.7 kN each) |
| Top speed | 1,038 km / h at an altitude of 12,000 | 1,024 km / h | 912 km / h |
| Service ceiling | 19,810 m | 18,300 m | 16,460 m |
| Range | 7,400 km | 7,360 km | 7,000 km |
| length | 30.45 m | 34.95 m | 32.99 m |
| height | 7.95 m | 8.97 m | 9.80 m |
| span | 33.83 m | 36.80 m | 34.85 m |
| Wing area | 368.26 m² | 241 m² | 219 m² |
| Empty weight | 37,144 kg | 41,275 kg | 34,419 kg |
| Max. Takeoff weight | 113,400 kg | 97,980 kg | 63,503 kg |
| Armament | Blue Steel CM, 454 kg (1,000 Lb ) bombs , max. Gun load approx. 9,500 kg | Blue Steel , 35 × 454 kg bombs, max. Gun load approx.15,890 kg | 1 × 4,540 kg bomb or 21 × 454 kg bombs, max. Gun load approx. 9,500 kg |
| Units produced | 134 (45 × W.1 + 89 × W.2) | 86 | 107 |
| First flight | August 30, 1952 | December 24, 1952 | May 18, 1951 |
| Commissioning | 1956 | 1958 | 1955 |
| Decommissioning | 1984 | 1993 | 1964 |
Swell:
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ 'Vulcan 607, 2nd Ed., 2012, Corgi Edition: page 79, para. 2.
- ^ Downey, Bob, V-Bombers, Arms and Armor Press, 1985.
- ↑ Middlebrook, Martin, The Berlin Raids: RAF Bomber Command Winter 1943-44, Penguin, 1990
- ↑ Brooks, Andrew, V-Force: The History of Britains Airborne Deterrent, Jane's, 1982.
- ↑ Jackson, Robert - World Military Aircraft since 1945, Ian Allan 1979
- ^ Jackson, Robert, Avro Vulcan, Patrick Stephens, 1984
- ^ Jones, Barry, V-Bombers: Vilant, Vulcan and Victor, Crowood Press, 2000.
- ^ Laming, Tim, The Vulcan Story: 1952-2002, Cassell, 2002
- ↑ Ring, Jim, We Come Unseen: The Untold Story of Britain's Cold War Submarines, John Murray, 2001
- ↑ Vulcan 607, 2nd Ed., 2012, Corgi Edition: page 79, para. 2.
- ↑ Vulcan 607, 2nd Ed., 2012, Corgi Edition: Page 125, Paragraph 3 and Page 127, Paragraph 2
- ↑ Brookes, Andrew, Handley Page Victor, Ian Allen, 1998.
- ↑ Bulman, Craig, The Vulcan B.Mk2 from a Different Angle, Pentland Press, 2001
- ^ Wynn, Humphrey, RAF Nuclear Deterrent Forces, HMSO, 1994
- ↑ Cruddas, Colin, In Cobham's Company: Sixty Years of Flight Refueling Limited, Cobham, 1994.
- ^ Delve, Ken, RAF Marham: The Operational History of Britains Front-line Base from 1916 to the Present Day, Patrick Stephens, 1995
- ↑ Burden, Rodney, Micheal Draper, Douglas Rough, Colin Smith, David Wilton: Falklands: The Air War, Arms and Armor Press, 1986.
- ↑ Rowland White, Vulcan 607 - The Epic Story of the Most Remarkable British Air Attack since the Second World War (Special 30th Anniversary Ed.), Corgi, 2012 (second ed.)
- ^ 'Victor Flight', Aircraft Illustrated, October 1986; Gething, Michael J., 'The Black Buck Raids', Vulcan News, Nov. 2000
- ^ 'The V-Bombers - Avro Vulcan - Part 1', Airplane Monthly, OCT 1980;
- ^ The V-Bombers - Avro Vulcan - Part 2 ', Airplane Monthly, NOV 1980;
- ^ The V-Bombers - Avro Vulcan - Part 3 ', Airplane Monthly, DEC 1980;
- ^ The V-Bombers - Handley Page Victor - Part 1 ', Airplane Monthly, JAN 1981;
- ^ The V-Bombers - Handley Page Victor - Part 2 ', Airplane Monthly, FEB 1981;
- ^ The V-Bombers - Handley Page Victor - Part 3 ', Airplane Monthly, FEB 1981;
- ↑ 'Jets', Vulcan Special, Winter 1999