HC Vulcan Bomber Return to the Skies
Transcript
00:00On May 1st, 1982, the Royal Air Force held its breath as its aging but legendary fleet
00:27of Vulcan bomber aircraft undertook one last great mission.
00:32Crew stand by, one mile to bomb release, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, bomb's gone.
00:57The RAF took the first strike against the Argentinian invaders of the Falkland Islands.
01:07Its bombs delivered an unmistakable message.
01:10The British are coming, and we will not be defeated.
01:14Only one aircraft could achieve this seemingly impossible mission over such great distances.
01:20The legendary Vulcan bomber.
01:50As large as a Boeing 737-200, as fast as a fighter, with an operational ceiling of 65,000
02:07feet, her delta shape and ultra-secret anti-radar devices made her all but invisible to enemy
02:13forces.
02:15She was unlike anything that the world had seen before, and her awesome power sent shockwaves
02:20through the Russian Politburo.
02:34It was obvious that the Vulcan was designed for one purpose.
02:38To deliver a devastating nuclear strike against our Soviet enemies in the Cold War.
02:44This awesome weapon needed a name that would strike terror into the hearts of our opponents.
02:50Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and iron.
02:55And so was born an aeronautical legend.
02:59This is the story of one group's attempts to return this legend to the skies.
03:09The Vulcan's revolutionary shape caused much consternation in the 1950s.
03:14Although originally it was felt that the design might not give enough lift or cause drag,
03:19in fact, entirely the opposite was true.
03:22Aviation journalist Peter March recalls the first time he saw this revolutionary aircraft
03:27fly.
03:30It was September 1952, the Farnborough Airshow, and out over the Laffands Plain there was
03:37a distinctive shape in the sky, a triangle, a white triangle, something I'd never seen
03:43before.
03:44And as it came across the airfield, there was the Vulcan coming into view and displaying
03:50for a ghast public.
03:52They'd never seen anything like it before.
03:54Now, Roly Falk was a distinctive test pilot like no other.
04:00He flew that Vulcan in August, just a week before it was displaying at the Farnborough
04:05Airshow.
04:06Farnborough 1952, and the Avro Vulcan comes off the secret list.
04:12The world's first delta wing bomber, it sets new standards of load carrying, faster, higher
04:16and further than ever before.
04:20The subsequent years, he rolled it.
04:23Unimaginable for a bomber to be rolled at a public display, and he rolled it because
04:29he had the concept from the very beginning that he could fly it like a fighter.
04:39A post-World War II analysis of Allied strategic bombing affirmed the success of such tactics
04:45during the war.
04:46The new importance of nuclear weapons made it all the more imperative that the world's
04:51nuclear powers had long-range delivery capabilities.
04:55Britain's Royal Air Force issued a requirement for a new aircraft design, which could be
05:00based anywhere in the world, be able to strike targets up to 1,700 miles away, and deliver
05:07a heavy bomb load from high speed and high altitude.
05:11One of the three finalists for the job was the Avro Vulcan, first flown on the 3rd of
05:16August 1952.
05:19The Vulcan's main distinctive physical characteristic, its large delta wing shape, was a result of
05:25the need for structural integrity and a large payload capacity.
05:33The first production model of the Vulcan, the B Mark I, flew in early 1955, and after
05:40a major wing design change, entered service.
05:53In the early 1950s, former chief designer for BAE Systems, David Nadin, was a young
05:59boy.
06:01He remembers the awesome sight of the first Vulcans flying around Avro's Woodford factory.
06:07Well, I climbed up to the hill at the back of the house, and I must sort of put my age
06:12on this, I was about 11, 11 and a half, 12.
06:17And over the hill came this formation of two Vulcans line astern, two white Vulcans,
06:23straight leading edge, with four small 707s on each corner, which is the model here, actually
06:32in red, so they were painted red.
06:36And they were flying around the area of Maxfield, getting the formation right, and that went
06:42down to Farnborough in 1957, and you see pictures of that in magazines and papers
06:48at the time.
06:49I can't really explain it, but really this is where my desire was to get involved in
06:55aviation, was to get a job at Avro and Corn Limited, and work on the design side.
07:02Remarkably, having been inspired to get into aircraft design by the Mark I Vulcan, as a
07:08qualified designer, David Nadin would find himself working on the design of the Mark
07:13II.
07:14Structurally, the B-2 is very similar to a Mark I.
07:22Nose, fuselage, fin are the same, and the arrangement of the engines.
07:27One thing that distinguishes the Mark II is the bigger wingspan, and also to get better
07:36aerodynamic lift out of it, they increased the actual leading edge kink line.
07:49The Vulcan's triangular delta shape was so ahead of its time, that even today, her design
07:55concept is considered cutting edge.
08:02Comparison between first principal design sketches by her designer Roy Chadwick, dating
08:07to 1947, and today's B-2 stealth bomber, reveal a striking similarity.
08:22Ever since it first roared into the British national consciousness in the 1950s, the nation's
08:27love for the Vulcan has never waned.
08:35Some enthusiasts have even taken it upon themselves to return one of these great V-bombers to
08:41the skies.
09:07Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome in Leicestershire, once a base for United States bombers in the
09:111950s and 60s, is the new home of Vulcan XH558, a home it shares with an impressive collection
09:20of Cold War jets.
09:22This unique museum has been put together by Bruntingthorpe owner David Walton, who in
09:27the early 90s saw a chance to add a Vulcan to his collection.
09:32Initially we, having been told that the Vulcan wasn't going to be available for display purposes
09:38for the 93 display season, we had almost dismissed the idea.
09:44But a few days later, we received an invitation in the post to actually go and view the aircraft
09:50at Waddington.
09:51And when they learnt that we were from Bruntingthorpe, and they had obviously heard of the Lightnings
09:56being still remaining taxable at Bruntingthorpe, they were quite enthusiastic about us becoming
10:04involved and putting a bid in for the aircraft.
10:07We knew that there would be significant interest, both from overseas, in the States and other
10:16countries for the Vulcan.
10:18So we bid at £25,000, having had a fairly considerable amount of thought put into it,
10:24on the basis that we thought we'd get the money back by increasing our gate at the airshow
10:29if we were successful.
10:30We'd more than recouped that expenditure.
10:36In 1997, a small team of experts, headed up by aviation enthusiast Dr Robert Plemming,
10:44created a proposal to return Vulcan XH558 to flight.
10:50I came from an aviation background.
10:53I learnt to fly when I was 17.
10:56And whilst my career took me a long way away from aviation, it's always in the blood.
11:02I was one of several hundred thousand people who, when the Vulcan was grounded by the RAF,
11:12it was the wrong thing.
11:14I'm lucky enough to have the skills and the focus to put together a plan to return the
11:24aircraft to flight.
11:27And now, some ten years down the path, that's exactly what we're doing.
11:31We were informed that, although they couldn't tell us that we'd been successful, would we
11:36please turn up at Waddington for a press announcement about the future of the Vulcan and please
11:42wear your best suits.
11:43And it was announced that we'd been the successful applicant.
11:48And thereafter, the rest is history, really.
11:51It's actually a passion shared by thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of people.
11:56This aircraft, it's a beautiful shape.
11:59It's also awesome to see.
12:02It's one of the sights that you never forget.
12:04It's like Concorde.
12:05And it's one of the reasons why a number of us are so keen to see the aircraft fly.
12:13You couldn't really say it's a cult of the Vulcan.
12:15It's more pride, I think pride would be the right word.
12:24When we met the station commander, he took us to one side and said, if you get the Vulcan
12:29to Bronte and Thorpe and acquire all the spares that are available, keep it in good condition,
12:34one day there'll be an opportunity to fly it again.
12:37He says, I'm confident that when the story of the Black Book missions come out, somebody
12:42will want to make a film of that particular dramatic flight and it'll be a fantastic film
12:51to be made for public viewing.
12:53But he said, there will be an opportunity to fly the aircraft again if you keep it in
12:57good condition.
12:58So I suppose that was the motivation, really, to keep systems live, keep the aircraft taxable,
13:04hanger it through the winters and gently, gently try to get all the things in place
13:11whereby at some stage in the future there would be an opportunity to return the aircraft
13:16to flight status.
13:26David Walton's decision to buy all available spares, manuals and paperwork in 1993 has
13:33enabled the aircraft's current owner, the Vulcan operating company, to literally rebuild
13:39her.
13:54The aeroplane is actually in a state of what we call rectification, we're removing components
13:59which have been sent away to their original equipment manufacturers for overhaul.
14:05On their return we'll start to put them back onto the aeroplane and onto the systems.
14:09So at the moment we're looking at the structure, looking for any corrosion, any problems with
14:13the structure and repairing them accordingly.
14:16Then we'll put the components back on the systems and then we'll move into a function
14:19of that system.
14:20Right, going in now.
14:22This is one of the bigger tanks that we went into, number four, because it's near to the
14:26front of the wings.
14:28As you get nearer to the back it gets a lot more restricted in height.
14:33We're looking for corrosion, cracking, pulled rivets or any signs of stress on the airframe
14:39totally.
14:40Yeah, not too bad.
14:41French chalk seems to have kept it well.
14:44Fortunately the engines were the last overhauled set of engines by Rolls-Royce in 1982 and
14:51we purchased them in 1995.
14:53Now in fact we've done very little work to them.
14:57We've inspected them with a boroscope technique which has allowed us to look right down into
15:02the engines, mainly for corrosion.
15:05We've also removed the fuel system from the engines and they've gone off to BF Goodridge
15:09to be overhauled, the seals and diaphragms within them have aged so as a critical to
15:14flight component, without it the engine stops, we've had those overhauled.
15:20The work that we've done on the aircraft, we've followed the RAF documentation in its
15:24entirety, a thing called the Master Servicing Schedule.
15:27Now because of the age of the aircraft, we've actually used the word, we've done a super
15:31major.
15:32What we've done is we've looked deeper into the structure of the aircraft than was previously
15:36inspected and we've done this with modern techniques, modern non-destructive testing.
15:43We've been working on the fin, looking down on the inside of the fin for any signs of
15:48corrosion, signs of rivets which are slightly loose, any signs of paint loss and this sort
15:53of thing.
15:54We've done holes around the structure, some of which were there for inspection purposes,
15:58but with today's modern equipment we're able to get much, much deeper into the aircraft.
16:04It's saving an awful lot of time because to do the work that we've been doing by conventional,
16:09old fashioned means, it would mean de-skinning one side of the fin, going in and having a
16:13look and effectively seeing a little more than we've managed to see today.
16:17In fact in some cases they probably wouldn't see what we've been seeing today without very
16:20complicated mirrors and sticks and things.
16:23It's a 40-year-old design and some of the wire on this aeroplane was post-production
16:27so that has to have been inspected wire by wire.
16:31Now in the cockpit we found the wire in superb condition because it wasn't exposed to any
16:36environmental hazard, rain, water, very little UV because it was in conduits.
16:42The problems we have found is outside of the cockpit area in those areas like the undercarriage
16:46bay where the wire, which is a rubber base wire, has been exposed to the elements.
16:52So we're doing this super major.
16:54We've looked at everything.
16:56We've inspected to modern techniques.
16:59We've also used lots of generic skills and we've replaced with serviceable items from
17:04our deep storage, which fortunately we had some 600 tonnes to look at, pull those components,
17:10inspect those components and then place them on aeroplanes as and when required.
17:16The restoration project has been a major undertaking.
17:20Dealing with 60-year-old technology has required the retraining of younger skilled individuals
17:25to Civil Aviation Authority and RAF standards and the drafting of long-retired engineers
17:31onto the project.
17:34The knowledge gap was one issue.
17:36Funding for the project is a much larger problem.
17:41We believe it is probably the most complex aircraft restoration project that has ever
17:47been attempted.
17:49We estimated initially that we'd be looking for about three million, three and a half
17:53million pounds.
17:54It has inevitably, I think, exceeded that sum.
18:00We have had the wonderful support, unstinting support of nearly 20,000 members of the friends
18:09and club members who between them have raised huge amounts of money.
18:17Something like 2.8 million pounds over the years, which is wonderful.
18:22But the key to getting this project on the way was an appeal we made or application we
18:28made for a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund, which they accepted.
18:34And 2.734 million pounds from the Heritage Lottery Fund was enough to convince us, first
18:40of all, that we had a project and secondly that we had convinced people that we had a
18:46national heritage asset that we were trying to preserve.
18:49That has been key to everything we've done.
18:53We were approached by the group three or four years ago now.
18:56They had acquired an interest in the aircraft and they wanted to restore it and they asked
19:00us if we could put a grant towards the restoration.
19:04We took a look at the project.
19:05It seemed very interesting.
19:06It's quite unique in its way because it's one of the only aircraft that can be got back
19:10to flight.
19:11And eventually we decided, having looked at the risks to the aircraft and assessing its
19:16heritage merit, that it was worth putting a grant into.
19:19So we were able to give them 2.7 million pounds.
19:23It was quite a decision for us.
19:24We had to assess the risk.
19:26Obviously we're putting the public's lottery money into the project.
19:29We have to look very carefully that the aircraft can be restored properly and that it's going
19:34to be safe both to fly and for the public.
19:38However, despite lottery backing and countless hours of hard work, in the summer of 2006,
19:45a funding crisis threatened the entire project.
19:50I had a very, very unhappy task at the end of July of 2006 to come up to Bruntingthorpe
19:59to put our small but highly professional staff on one month's notice to close.
20:05The project was dead because, or looking to be dead, because of lack of cash flow.
20:13That was a sad thing and we had a roll-out planned for 31st of August and at that time
20:19it looked as though that would also be the end of the project.
20:25After millions of pounds and nearly 10 years of dedicated effort, the Vulcan team were
20:31about to see their dreams turn to dust.
20:44The Vulcan operating company have battled for many years to return their beloved Vulcan
20:49bomber to the skies.
20:52However, in the summer of 2006, their dreams were dashed as a funding crisis hit.
20:59They needed to find over one million pounds in just four weeks or the entire enterprise
21:05would collapse.
21:08Well, on that 31st of July date, we'd calculated looking forward that we would need 1.2 million
21:16pounds in order to ensure that the aircraft flew.
21:21And that was a tall order, 1.2 million in less than four weeks.
21:27That sum was raised in cash and in pledges.
21:29It was an absolutely remarkable achievement.
21:33Sir Jack Heywood, and I think everybody now knows this, a great British philanthropist
21:38and former RAF bomber pilot incidentally, offered us £500,000.
21:45That was matched, exceeded even, by the work of the friends and the club who, between them
21:51in cash and pledges, raised £700,000.
21:55We'd got our 1.2 million in less than four weeks.
21:59That was remarkable.
22:02The cheques continued to come in, and on the day of the rollout on the 31st of August,
22:08cheques were still coming in.
22:09I collected a cheque from a well-wisher for £60,000, £10,000 from another, and I should
22:15mention a young schoolboy who said, I've only got 92p left from my pocket money.
22:21Will that do?
22:22And we said, absolutely.
22:23And took it.
22:24We had a stake in this as well.
22:35With funding back on track, we could once again look forward to seeing the Vulcan bomber
22:39back in the skies.
22:44But the financial support, and in particular the lottery funding given to the project,
22:49wasn't just to see crowds wowed at airshows.
22:53It also had to educate Britain's younger generation about the perils of nuclear war.
22:59A remarkable irony, as the Vulcan was once one of the most deadly weapons ever devised,
23:04and a deterrent against the Russian threat that nearly ended in World War III.
23:10A dark period in history that legendary author, former RAF pilot, and Vulcan fan, Frederick
23:17Forsyth remembers well.
23:21The bomber missile crisis started with a photograph, well actually a lot of photographs.
23:26They were taken by a very high-flying American U-2 spy plane over Cuba.
23:32And when they were developed, what they showed was a number of clearings in the forests,
23:36and inside the clearings what appeared to be sticks, but they were not sticks.
23:40They were rockets.
23:41And they weren't even defensive rockets.
23:43They were Soviet attack rockets, and they were aimed directly at the heart of the USA.
23:47Well, as far as President Kennedy was concerned, that was not acceptable.
23:51And he called Mr. Khrushchev over in Moscow and told him, quite literally, to remove them.
23:57Khrushchev refused.
23:58In fact, he went further.
23:59He said that a number of further Soviet vessels were on their way to Cuba with further rockets
24:03and rocket parts.
24:04The American response was to put a line of U.S. Navy warships in the sea east of Cuba
24:10between the oncoming Soviet vessels and the land.
24:14And then President Kennedy said, if you cross this line, we shall sink your ships.
24:19And Khrushchev replied, if you do, we will regard that as a declaration of war.
24:24They were literally staring at each other a few inches away, face to face.
24:32If America was attacked, the retaliation would involve British Vulcan bombers attacking Moscow.
24:38This threat led to the construction of top-secret nuclear bunkers around the UK.
24:46This is one of three existing bunkers buried deep under the fields of England, unbeknownst
24:53even to the agricultural workers who plough the fields far above our heads.
24:58This is where the secret government, after a nuclear wipeout, would have taken place.
25:04Of the various times and occasions when danger seemed particularly high, there's one that
25:09still stands out so clearly that it raises hackles on the necks of those who remember it well.
25:15It occupied one long and very sweaty weekend in October 1962, and today it's simply referred
25:21to as the Cuba Missile Crisis.
25:25And it was the time when we probably came closest to global nuclear war.
25:34Attention, attention, this is the bomber controller for bomb list Sierra, scramble.
25:46For bomb list Sierra, scramble.
25:48Bomber controller out.
25:54One man who experienced the pressures of being on nuclear standby during the Cold War was
25:59Vulcan bomber Air Electronics Officer Mike Pearson.
26:03On every V4 station, four B bombers would be positioned at the end of the main runway.
26:11They would be loaded up with the type of weapons that they were tasked with dropping, and by
26:16this I mean real live nuclear weapons or atomic weapons.
26:21What we would wear would be our air ventilated suits which were next to our skin, a flying
26:28overall, then G trousers, pressure trousers, a pressure jerking, and then on top of that
26:36we would wear a Mae West.
26:39And we wore that for 24 hours.
26:41So we slept in it, and it was very uncomfortable because all the connectors, tubes, came out
26:48to a thing down the side, like a single connector, a chute type connector, and trying to get
26:55to sleep sometimes was very difficult.
26:58Our aim would be to get four Vulcans airborne in about a minute and 40 seconds.
27:05So from stone cold, in other words nothing running, to actually getting airborne, we
27:10would do it in about a minute and 40 seconds.
27:16This ultra-rapid scramble time was of course essential.
27:20Any slower and the retaliating Vulcan fleet would be caught up in the devastating blast
27:25when Soviet nuclear weapons struck the UK.
27:29The irony would be that even if the Vulcans successfully launched missiles against Moscow,
27:34the aircraft would have no airfields to return to, as the initial Russian attack would have
27:39wiped out the UK.
27:47By the time of the Cuban crisis, doubts were surfacing about the ability of the RAF to
27:52pierce the defences of the Soviet Union.
27:55The shooting down of Gary Powers in a U-2 spy plane in 1960 confirmed that the Soviet
28:01Union did have surface-to-air missiles capable of reaching the heights that bombers operated
28:06at.
28:07The new mantra became ultra-low-level attack.
28:11Instead of operating at over 60,000 feet, the Vulcan crews would now be operating at
28:17under 250 feet.
28:20This would not only avoid surface-to-air missiles, but allow pilots to use the new
28:24bombing technique called flick-bombing, which saw the pilots do a 90-degree climb at the
28:30point of bomb release.
28:32The extra inertia created by this manoeuvre would literally throw the bombs at the target
28:38area.
28:39The air ministry realised that the surface-to-air missiles that the Russians had could get us,
28:47so hence we went low-level.
28:50And I did one of the first low-level flights on my squadron, and this consisted of flying
28:56out into the Bristol Channel, heading for the island of Lundy, coming inland.
29:03We then had to climb to get over Lundy, drop down again, cross the coast, turn left, up
29:11over Snowdonia, then drop down again to coast out at a place called Rill.
29:20On one of our trips, we were coasting out over Rill, and we disappeared into the mist.
29:31And when we got back, my wing commander operations came to me and said, where were you just before
29:40midday?
29:41And I looked at my log and I said, oh, we were just coasting out over Rill.
29:45Oh, he said, thank God it's you, you were reported as crashing.
29:49And the reason for that was that in those days, the Vulcans used to trail a lot of black
29:56smoke.
29:57Throughout the 1970s and early 80s, the Soviets were still very much a threat at sea, and
30:02a number of the remaining airworthy Vulcans carried out a vital reconnaissance role, working
30:07with the Royal Navy.
30:11Well, I served on 27 Squadron for about two years in the maritime radar reconnaissance
30:14role.
30:15I was a co-pilot.
30:16And our main job was to fly at about 20,000, 25,000 feet, and the radar navigator would
30:22map the ocean.
30:23That's looking for ships and mark them down on a grid, which he would transmit openly.
30:29Our submarines would pick up the information, and they knew where our ships were, and therefore
30:34the only thing left was the enemy shipping.
30:38The other role we did was to go down and look at Soviet ships, the military ships, and take
30:43photographs of them, so that we could send them back for analysis, looking for any new
30:49weapon systems they had on board the ships.
30:52Despite their vital work at sea, the end was nigh for the Vulcan fleet.
30:57The RAF began the decommissioning process by disbanding No. 230 Operational Conversion
31:03Unit at Scampton on 31 August 1981.
31:08The remaining squadrons of Vulcans were scheduled to close at the end of June 1982.
31:15It seemed a low-key ending to a fantastic career for a groundbreaking aircraft.
31:20Some of her crews wished she could end her service in style.
31:26Then, on 2 April 1982, Argentine forces under the command of Admiral Carlos Busa invaded
31:37the British territories of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia in the South Atlantic.
31:43The House meets this Saturday to respond to a situation of great gravity.
31:48We are here because for the first time for many years, British sovereign territory has
31:54been invaded by a foreign power.
31:58After several days of rising tension in our relations with Argentina, that country's armed
32:04forces attacked the Falkland Islands yesterday and established military control of the islands.
32:14It became clear within the first few days of the Argentine invasion that their recovery
32:18of the Falklands would entail a major military operation, spearheaded by the RAF.
32:25For the heavy bombing roles, there was only one aircraft which could perform the job.
32:30The Vulcan bomber.
32:32Plans to disband the Vulcan fleet were suspended and all flight crew leave revoked.
32:44Following the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands in April 1982, Vulcan disbandment
32:49plans were suspended and the training of flight crews in conventional bombing operations and
32:55in-flight refueling had commenced.
32:58However, as former Vulcan Air Electronics Officer Barry Macefield explains, it was training
33:05which was fraught with danger.
33:07Because the aeroplanes hadn't been used for in-flight refueling for decades, all the
33:13seals and couplings in the refueling probe, which pokes out from the front of the nose,
33:18they had all dried up and perished.
33:20And every time we tried to make contact with the victor tanker, the fuel would escape from
33:25the front of the probe, would come over the front of the windscreen, would be squirting
33:30down the side of the aeroplane.
33:32What worried me more than anything else, being in charge of all the electrical equipment,
33:37was the fumes which possibly were in the cockpit.
33:39There was lots of arcing and sparking going around here.
33:42All we're going to end up with is a big fireball.
33:46Despite the dangers, training continued, until finally the Vulcan was deployed in anger on
33:52bombing raids codenamed Black Buck.
33:55Their mission required them to fly a record-breaking 7,700 miles between the nearest available
34:02base, Wide Awake Airfield on Ascension Island, and Britain's own runway in enemy-occupied
34:08Port Stanley.
34:10Then, after many hours of flying, they must destroy the runway, preventing the Argentines
34:15from using it as a base for air attacks.
34:21It was a very difficult operation.
34:23The Vulcan, as I say, was about to go out of service.
34:26As always, the Royal Air Force, but I mean the armed services, in this case the Royal
34:31Air Force, pulled out all the stops, as did industry, incidentally.
34:35Between us all, we cobbled together a plan to put a bomb on the airfield and the runway
34:43at Port Stanley.
34:448,000-mile round trip from Ascension Island, the longest strike bombing mission in history
34:51at that time, and it was all done on a little bit of a wing and a prayer.
34:56Well, the thing which attracted me to the story was that somebody had had the imagination
35:01and the ambition to even dream it was possible.
35:03They were being asked to bomb a target which was going to be the same distance from London
35:08as Hawaii is, near the Arctic Circle, over 4,000 miles of open sea, without anything
35:17more to navigate over that sea than a sextant, or the same sort of thing that Nelson would
35:22use.
35:23The sort of shape of that story and the challenges involved seemed to me very similar to a story
35:27like the Dam Busters.
35:28It was, OK, here's an impossible job.
35:30Go out and do it.
35:32You haven't really got the tools for it, but don't let that bother you.
35:35And through a kind of combination of ingenuity, pluck, sort of bloody-mindedness, they managed
35:41to sort of put together something that works.
35:45These operations have justifiably developed an almost myth-like status.
35:50The planes were flying apart, not truly fit for service.
35:54The danger of enemy attack extreme because the Vulcans had no fighter support.
36:00And because of the incredible distance involved, a remarkable piggyback refuelling strategy
36:05had to be devised, using the Victor tanker.
36:10The whole principle of the air-to-air refuelling is that the aircraft is, make you topped up
36:17all the time, to give it enough fuel to get back to an airfield.
36:20Now, obviously, if you're travelling 3,500, 4,000 miles across the Atlantic, unless you've
36:26got an aircraft with a really long range, you need to refuel lots of times.
36:31So we were scheduled to refuel five times on the way down to the South Atlantic, and
36:37then we would then set off full to do the attack, and then some hours later, we would
36:43meet up with a Victor off the coast of Brazil, and then fill up with enough fuel to get us
36:49back to the Central Island.
36:52With all the odds stacked against them, the Vulcans and their brave flight crews soared
36:57into war, and their finest hour.
37:01I was acutely aware that all the lights and everything were on, on the airfield, it felt
37:06very, very cold-blooded to go in and just drop bombs on people, because at that stage,
37:11you had no animosity towards them, you weren't actually feeling that you were defending your
37:18own troops or anything like this, it was just a cold-blooded attack, to drop a bomb.
37:22And it was then just a matter of just holding the thing really steady, and hoping that we
37:27were aiming at the right point, and then the second that the last bomb had dropped, just
37:33banging the aircraft and getting the hell out of there.
37:36The thing that ran through my mind at the time was, there was no flak coming at us,
37:40I was expecting sort of lights of flak to be going past us, but also there was no orchestra
37:44playing. And again, we had never done this before, I'd only ever seen it in the movies,
37:49and on the movies, when you're going for a bombing run, there's the orchestra in the
37:52background playing away.
37:55When news spread that the first Black Buck Vulcan raid had achieved its seemingly impossible
37:59mission, it sent a wave of euphoria around our armed forces and at home.
38:04Just rejoice at that news, and congratulate our forces and the Marines.
38:15The seventh and final Black Buck mission was flown on the 11th and 12th of June, and delivered
38:21airburst bombs.
38:25Although only minor damage resulted from the Black Buck missions, the May 1st attack had
38:30been awe-inspiring.
38:33It delivered a warning that no combat aircraft would be safe at Port Stanley.
38:39Consequently, no Argentinian fighters landed there.
38:44The Vulcans heralded Britain's unwavering response to the Argentinian aggression, a
38:49testament to the RAF's stoicism and invention in the face of adversity.
39:03Few retired aircraft retain the mystique enjoyed by the Vulcan.
39:07For many years, people have dreamed of seeing Britain's last flying Vulcan bomber in the
39:12skies again, but never dared believe the day would come.
39:18But now, that dream is fast becoming a reality, as after ten years of tireless work and millions
39:25of pounds in funding, Vulcan XH558 is almost ready to take her rightful place in the skies
39:33once again.
39:37I think that our team here will have achieved a remarkable feat in returning this aircraft
39:45to flight. It's demonstrably the only project of its size and complexity in the world, and
39:54it'll be a real inspiration to others that such things are possible.
40:00It's 14 years now since I last flew the aircraft, and certain things do dim. I've been fortunate
40:07because I've been able to operate several Vulcans during the intervening years, for
40:12instance 655 down at Welsbourne Mountford, which we operate every year for a couple of
40:18episodes, up and down their runway and just showing her off to the public.
40:22We're going through not only the aircraft systems, but things like what happens when
40:26things go wrong, because things are always going wrong with mechanical things, so practicing
40:31abandonment drills and the like from the airplane.
40:36So we've been trialling the new parachute, which is a parachute which has been used by
40:41the Air Force, but it's had to be modified for our use on the Vulcan to incorporate the
40:46use of our personal survival pack, which we need in an emergency situation should we have
40:51to bail out of the aeroplane.
40:54And so the gentlemen have come along with a couple of parachutes today, and myself and
40:58Andy are trialling them. We've played inside the aeroplane and seen how difficult it is
41:03to get strapped in with these things, so a modification is going to have to be made to
41:07the parachute to incorporate the strapping in process. We've just done a suspension trial
41:13from me hanging on this forklift trolley, which presented its own little problems. Everything
41:19seemed out of place, but the straps and release handles weren't exactly where I thought they
41:25were going to be.
41:26The thrill of being on the project is the fact that it's such an iconic aircraft. I saw it
41:31in my service career, and it's an absolute pleasure to be able to work on it. And the
41:38fact that we were able to return it to flight, show it to the public, is a fantastic opportunity.
41:46And as a final seal of approval, XH558 has a special visitor before her final roll-out,
41:54Baroness Thatcher.
41:56Well, after nine years of toil and effort by some of us, and over five for the majority,
42:06we're going to get this aeroplane back in the air. I have a body of trustees who've
42:11put every effort into helping this project along, in terms particularly of fundraising,
42:18and it's been a remarkable effort by a lot of people.
42:26The team have been working incredibly hard to get it ready, obviously, for today. The
42:32taxi runs, get those out of the way, and thankfully they were all successful. There weren't too
42:35many snags to pick up, a few minor niggles, but nothing major. And on with today, really.
42:43The team is pretty focused, as you can imagine. We had a really successful day yesterday with
42:49the fast taxis, and today, just looking around me, it's a beautiful day. It's just right
42:56for flying, and I hope we'll be doing that slightly later.
43:00It's a tremendous achievement that the team have done. It's taken a long time, it's taken
43:06a lot of money, but I keep thinking back to when I was in the Air Force and flew these
43:12things, how it would take about three months to do a major service.
43:17It is an icon of British engineering, and when you think that that wonderful shape,
43:22which still looks pretty modern, doesn't it, was designed, first drawn, 60, 6-0 years ago.
43:28Yeah, we're just checking the last things on the aircraft, but otherwise things are
43:32looking really good.
43:33When I see it down the runway, my heart will go out to the crew, knowing that this is the
43:39first time any of them have been in a live Vulcan in the last 10, 12 years.
43:46I'm going to feel enormously proud. It's almost like watching your baby take its first few
43:51steps, really. Having seen the jet from being in a basic state, stripped down, and slowly
43:56building it up over time, and bringing the systems to life, bringing the aircraft back
44:00to life. It's going to be amazing to finally see it go up. Feel the pride, feel the pride.
44:05It's just unbelievable. I was here in 93 on the Vulcan display team when we brought it
44:09here, and little did I know, 15 years later, I'd be back here again, actually being the
44:14crew chief and getting it back up into the air again. It's just been unbelievable.
44:18Marshalls 1-5, Marshall 1-5, Buntingthorpe Radio. You are clear for take-off, at your
44:25discretion.
44:27Buntingthorpe Radio, 5-3, listen, it is very cold, please report on board.
44:44Buntingthorpe Radio, 5-3, listen, it is very cold, please report on board.
45:15Next, a feature-length special explores the morality and military effectiveness of the
45:22mass civilian bombing in World War II, from the Blitz to the devastating Allied raids
45:27on Hamburg and Dresden.