This plane doesn't look like much here, just another cold war era, monster, jet-powered warplane, but the full size image is another story. It gives you a much better idea of just what you are looking at. This is the last of its kind. They first flew in 1956 and were taken out of service in 1984. It's a big aircraft, 100 feet long and 100 feet wide. (
Wikipedia)
The plane's one claim to fame comes from a bombing raid conducted during the Falklands war back in 1982 flying 4,000 miles to the Falklands and then 4,000 miles back to Ascension Island.
Flying that far required refueling from aerial tankers, not just once, but several times, and since the tankers didn't have great range either, they had to be refueled as well, which meant a cascade of inflight refueling operations.
Back in the late 1950s, Britain had their
V-Force of three different nuclear capable bombers: the Vulcan, the Victor and the Valiant. I think the Victor looks like a bug.
3 comments:
Er NO!!
Afaik that Vulcan went on to Chile, landed there, then sat out the rest of the Falklands war there.
Half a dozen missions were flown. One plane on one mission did get diverted to Brazil.
All that effort , for a single hit on the runway .
Not sure why the Argies didn't do a quick , good-enough-for-now patch , and base a few of their Mirages there . It could have been a game changer .
One of the coolest things about the Vulcan - due to a quirk in the design of the intakes, the column of air feeding the engines resonated, giving the Vulcan it's distinctive "howl" .
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