Finally, they’ve done it and put the Vulcan back in the skies again. Ah, the sound of four Rolls Royce Olympus with the throttles open, beautiful.
Some links, the Flight International one has some great pics.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/leicestershire/7049694.stm
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/10/18/218727/picture-first-picture-of-the-avro-vulcan-xh558-return-to-flight.html
And webcam
http://vbc02.verifiedalarms.co.uk/
Vulcan to the Sky Trust.
Let’s get her down BA and distribute some friendship!!!
Bloody great news, that plane is an icon.
I believe the Vulcan did visit Buenos Aires during its world tour.
Last year I´ve read a very good book on the Vulcan operations during the Falklands/Malvinas war, It had an “alphanumeric” tittle that Dr. Alzheimer does not allow me to recall right now.
They faced enormous odds against on those missions which at the end of the line served almost no purpose as they could not put the landing strip out of service, I think though they destroyed a “Skyguard” radar with one ARM.
I sincerely recomend that book, which I do not have right now as I “lent it” to a friend and you know what happens when you do that.:roll:
Saludos.
Pánzon.
Vulcan 607
A very well written book about a very exceptional Bombing Raid, that although not entirely successful, certainly put the willies up the Junta.
Yep, and the Crabs get the mickey taken out of them to this day for it. To be fair to them, however, the Black Buck raids had nothing to do with the airfields they were bombing. It was all about ensuring the Argentinians to keep their Mirage interceptors on the mainland, not the Falklands, which happened.
Hello pdf27.
Cold you please explain me the meaning of this phrase
“Yep, and the Crabs get the mickey taken out of them to this day for it.”
I know some “rhime slang”, the most ussual, like the "apples and pears " or the stairs… and my car is certainly a “Jam Jar”… and I do love “pukka nosh”, but this one… is completelly alien to me.
Cheers,
Juan.
Crabs = RAF - the uniform is the colour of Crabfat Grease used by the navy to either grease their big guns (on battleships) or treat venereal disease depending on who tells you the story. It’s not a friendly way of describing them.
The raid did hit the runway. The Argentinians didn’t base any Jets there and so I believe it was successful. Doubly, it was a moral success, it made a statement that the RAF could hit anywhere in the S Atlantic. How many ac did Argentina hold back to defend airbases ad cities?
There was a lot of hyperbole and nonsense about the Black Buck raids but they did have some effect.
It caused the Junta to withdraw the Mirage III for the defence of Buenos Aires and effectively put them out of the war. They were the only aircraft capable of taking AAM to the Falklands. The Argentines now claim this is British propaganda but the original source of the story was an interview with an Argentine Air Force officer by an American journalist.
Contrary to most of the propaganda claims on the British side the British never thought they could put the runway out of action. Air power doctrine is quite clear about the limited usefulness of attacking runway surfaces; it can delay but not eliminate bringing airpower into action.
The British knew the Argentines were using C-130 out of the airbase at night. They put a lot of effort into interdiction of these sorties leading to the loss of at least one C-130. The stories about being fooled by mud on the runway are just that - stories.
Another common misconception is that the Argentines made no attempt to use Port Stanley. They flew A-4Q out of the airfield around the 17th April before withdrawing them back to the carrier for an attempted attack on the British fleet. They also fitted CHARG (Chain arrestor gear) and were fitting steel matting to extend the runway (till Black Buck 2).
Then there is the urban legend that the Argentine engineers who built the runway deliberately placed it incorrectly on the map. The airfield was in fact built by British engineers (Babcock International) from memory. This replaced a temporary steel strip that the Argentines built following the infamous Communications Agreement of 1972.
Yes, I think that most of the older M III were dedicated to the defense of the Capital and Cordoba, just in case, but those were only capable by then of using the Super 530 ER/IR, specially designed to attack bombers such as the Vulcan and they were thus useless for any tactical use in the Malvinas theatre. The ones with Magic one capabilitty, remained in the southern theatre.
Black Buck one , did hit half of the width of the runway, making it difficult to operate but not impossible for superb airmen operating in the most difficult situation you can imagine. As sort of “Keh Sahn” áL´creole…
C 130, Fokker F-28 operated almost to the last day, and there was a flight of Aermacchi 339 of the COAN ( Naval aviattion 1st Squadrilla) one of them during an offensive reconosaince flight discovered the landing in San Carlos water and did two pases attacking a British frigate with rockets and cannon fire… I think it was the HMS Argonaut. and the pilot was Lt. Guillemo ( William) Owen Crippa. Naval Aviation COAN… reverence to his pair of hardened balls of steel.
So the runway was opertional until the last day, the damage was exagerated with make up so the British recon fligh would report a runway not operational… that make up was even made "tridimensional, so to disguised the truth even from the stereoscopic recon cameras.
And no, the harriers never catched any C 130 flying in our out Puerto Argentino… the only one lost , to the cappable hands of Cap. Ward, who denied them the possibility of a crash landing and hosed the cabin with 30 mmm cannon… from my modest point of view, a real ungentemantly act, the plane was just trying to crash landing into the sea and perhaps the possibility for some of the crew to save themselves with their life rafts… but that is a problem for Mr. Ward´s concience.
Needless to say , in one of so arguable decissions of the COATLANSUR flight “TIZA” where sent into a reconoisance mission to the same place in which the previous day or a few hours before another c 130, was on station reporting enemy activity, so one of the British Frigates plotted an interception course that was just on the limits of the harriers… the rest is history…
On that c 130 loss, two vice-Commodores lost their life, a Major, and several other specialists.
It was a stupid decission to send that I seem to temember TC.63 C-130 in a recon flight, with a meterological radar, defenseless and to a station in which they KNEW that there was enemy activity.
Cheers,
Panzon,
The mud “craters” on the runway didn’t fool the British, they knew the runway was still being used throughout the war. They made several attempts to interdict the flights in/out of Port Stanley without much success. Its another one of the legends surrounding the Black Buck raids.
Sorry but I think you’re rather harsh on Sharkey Ward, he had very little time to make an interception and you don’t have the time to be sporting and give the crew time to “hit the silk”. Given half a chance an Argentine pilot would have done exactly the same if the situation were reversed.
Hi Ranger,
No Argentine with knowledge about the Falklands air war will miss the opportunity to “drop” something when talking about Nigel Ward… I think there are recordings of the last seconds of “TIZA” ( C 130 flight) sending distress signals and announcing a crash landing in the water that are, for the Argentine side, quite emotinal.
Perhaps it is a legend, but I think all is well documented by now. Including a version from Ward´s wingman.
There is also a bit of “command remorse” as the plane was sent unnecesarily to an area known from a previous flight by another C 130 to be compromissed.
In any case, If I were Ward, I would not have given the “coup de grace” to a falling airplane, but off course, I never served, I have no military background except for the Cross of Iron that my grand dad won in WWI…
But I would say, that no Argentine pilot would have fired upon a target that was already taken out of action and on fire, it would be like denying an equal the posibility of ejection.
Anyway… such an “ace” mr Ward. I think his total count was a C 130 and a Pucará… Both with canon fire, at least the combat with the Pucará was against another fighter plane, driven by the then MY. Tomba, even when it was a COIN turbo prop that was practically a “toy” in comparisson with a Harrier.
I think you guys have much better examples of chivalrous knights than Mr. Ward.
No bad feelings, just the explanation why, this “ace”/ writer will never have a warm welcoming in Argentina.
Cheers,
Pánzon.
That’s actually a perfect demonstration of the reason Argentina lost that particular war. You guys still have some conception of chivalry in warfare. The British side recognised it as organised murder, and acted accordingly.
It isn’t a nice attitude to have, but it works…
Hi pdf,
Thanks for the reply.
Do not underestimate the blood thirst of a Junta that had his hands soaked in his own fellow countrymen blood, they were not the same, but the continuators… the advantage was that the war was fought by the “professional soldiers”, no the manhunters, and conscripted personnel of two “classes” (conscription years at that time)…
I think that in spite of some complains such as “the Argie soldiers shitted in my barn”, it was mainly a gentlemen´s war except for a few cases such as the shooting down a Super Puma on its way to SAR the “ARA Alférez Sobral” after being attacked.
Cheers,
Pánzon.
Panzon,
Nice to hear from you, in passing did you get my email?
Sorry but I’m going to continue with saying that your condemnation of Ward is out of place, he and his wingman were both low on fuel and had very little time to make the engagement. Having read several accounts of the action, including the comments by his wingman and by various third parties. it was regarded by the British as sad but necessary. Argentina did not have a massive airlift capability and reducing the capacity to resupply Stanley made it a clearly vital target.
There may have been Argentine recordings of the radio call but Ward and his wingman wouldn’t have heard them being on a different radio frequency. And to be brutally honest the real blame lies with the commander who put a vulnerable and tempting target in harms way.
If you want to talk emotion, try listening to some of the accounts of the Sir Galahad and the Sir Tristram. The people involved in that incident have moved on, even meeting the pilots who bombed them. It was a war, bad things happen but if the veterans can move on the non-involved shouldn’t bear a grudge.
Oddly, I’m not arguing that it was somehow ungentlemanly or that war crimes were committed by either side. Rather, I’m saying that the mental attitudes were different. The British had the mindset that they were going to kill the enemy and keep killing until the enemy gave up. The Argentines seem somewhat to have sleepwalked into the war, and many seem almost to have had the attitude that their moral case was so strong (at least to their eyes, having been taught since birth that the islands were part of Argentina - to the extent that many expected the inhabitants to welcome them and speak Spanish) that the British wouldn’t attack them.
Indeed, from what I’ve read Argentine conscripts were treated far worse by their own officers than they were by the British after capture. To the extent that the officers were demanding to keep their personal weapons after capture to protect themselves from the men in some cases, while the conscripts were amazed to see British officers sitting down with their men and eating the same rations.
There was something very, very rotten with the Argentine conscripts sent to the Falklands…
The Falklands War is often held up as being remarkable in recent conflicts for the fact that both sides respected the Law of Armed Conflict. About the only concrete example of a “war crime” occurred when Argentine forces machine gunned downed airmen in the water during the San Carlos landings. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9iMvDC40DSUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Commentaries+upon+international+law+Falkland&lr=&as_brr=1&sig=_6P-TITFUP66G7NGb9jn17_ugS4#PPA51,M1 is a link to an American general study of the Law of Armed Conflict that contains a number of examples from the Falklands, written from a neutral observer. So for once on this sensitive subject can we have no flames from a certain contributor.
Your comments on the Argentine conscripts reflect what I’ve read. For instance did you know that career officers and NCO got superior ration packs than the conscripts? What I found most amazing was that officers would leave the men in the field to sleep in warm beds in Stanley. The conscripts were pursuing a legal case regarding their mistreatment, I did follow it for a while but I’m not sure what happened lately.
So for once on this sensitive subject can we have no flames from a certain contributor.
Hahahaha, so funny. So now the war crimes was my invention and “flaming”
You are pathetic.
I didnt wrote the book “Excursion to hell”, I didnt wrote the book “Green eyed boys”, I didnt pay the argentine soldier to make statements saying the british commited crimes.
I didnt pay british soldier to make them writing books in wich they were portrayed committing crimes.
I didnt put a pistol in the head of that one who said they killed severely wounded argentine soldiers for mercy.
I didnt found a bag full of ears cut off from argentine wounded and dead.
Dont kill the messenger man, for you posting an information wich you dont gree with is flaming, quite a democratic view of the forum. :rolleyes:
And in any case… why we are talking about war crimes again? Firefly already closed the topic and despite I completely disagree with that decission I think it should not be reopened here.