The Dark Wob

My previously mentioned neighbour has told me stories about the Falklands Vulcan mission, he did say that it was touch and go as to whether it would be successful.
The BBMF and East Kirkby guys have a lot of respect for each other and often help out if there's a problem. I've attached a couple of photos of the Mosquito taxiing just because it's a Mosquito and thus brilliant. It's owned by a father and son, when the father bought the fuselage back in the 60's he put it on a rather lengthy trailer and towed it to his bungalow behind his circa 1964 Singer Vogue estate where he put the trailer/fuselage combo down the side of the residence in a suburban street. You'd get people moaning about that these days.

I read a book about the Port Stanley Vulcan a while ago.
The logistics were horrendous with Victors having to refuel other Victors and subsequently the Vulcan, the plan called for 15 Victor sorties and 18 aerial refuellings. I can quite see how it was touch and go as apparently one failure to connect could have doomed the mission.

Skin of our teeth as always......At least we had some hardware then.

It was a brilliant bit of improvisation, that's one of the things we seem to be world-class at.

The Yanks would have thrown billions at it, taken years and then scrapped it, the Germans would have initiated something in the Bundestag that would take years if not decades and the French would have nuked them.

All stereotypes are imaginary.

You forgot the Russians. They would have copied it all in monkey metal but driven/ridden/flown the shit out of it.

That probably started in WW2 when the life of a Russian tank was apparently measured in days. A bit like the Colin Chapman idea that a racing car ideally should fall to pieces as it crosses the finishing line.

chadders wrote: ↑Thu Sep 17, 2020 5:38 pm It was a brilliant bit of improvisation, that's one of the things we seem to be world-class at.

The Yanks would have thrown billions at it, taken years and then scrapped it, the Germans would have initiated something in the Bundestag that would take years if not decades and the French would have nuked them.

All stereotypes are imaginary.

All stereotypes are stereotypes because they are real.

Fair cop.

chadders wrote: ↑Thu Sep 17, 2020 7:12 pmFair cop.

Except that one, fair cops are a myth.

mercrocker wrote: ↑Thu Sep 17, 2020 6:31 pm You forgot the Russians. They would have copied it all in monkey metal but driven/ridden/flown the shit out of it.

I knew a helicopter pilot once who explained that western aircraft had a throttle quadrant that could be advanced into a sector that was unsustainable for any serious length of time, and it was understood that this could only be used in extremis.

Russian ones are apparently designed to use the protocol that the operator will always expect to turn any given control to maximum - like Ice Cream van chimes and certain religious building extenal PA systems.