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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.
00:58The RAF took the first strike against the Argentinian invaders of the Falkland Islands.
01:04Its bombs delivered an unmistakable message.
01:07The British are coming, and we will not be defeated.
01:11Only one aircraft could achieve this seemingly impossible mission over such great distances.
01:17The legendary Vulcan bomber.
01:27To be continued...
01:58As large as a Boeing 737-200, as fast as a fighter, with an operational ceiling of 65,000 feet,
02:07her delta shape and ultra-secret anti-radar devices made her all but invisible to enemy forces.
02:14She was unlike anything that the world had seen before,
02:17and her awesome power sent shockwaves through the Russian Politburo.
02:27It was obvious that the Vulcan was designed for one purpose.
02:37To deliver a devastating nuclear strike against our Soviet enemies in the Cold War.
02:43This awesome weapon needed a name that would strike terror into the hearts of our opponents.
02:49Vulcan. The Roman god of fire and iron.
02:54And so was born an aeronautical legend.
02:58This is the story of one group's attempts to return this legend to the skies.
03:08The Vulcan's revolutionary shape caused much consternation in the 1950s.
03:13Although originally it was felt that the design might not give enough lift or cause drag,
03:18in fact, entirely the opposite was true.
03:21Aviation journalist Peter March recalls the first time he saw this revolutionary aircraft fly.
03:29It was September 1952, the Farnborough Airshow,
03:33and out over the Laffands Plain there was a distinctive shape in the sky.
03:38A triangle, a white triangle, something I'd never seen before.
03:43And as it came across the airfield, there was the Vulcan,
03:47coming into view and displaying for a ghast public.
03:51They'd never seen anything like it before.
03:53Now, Rowley Falk was a distinctive test pilot like no other.
03:59He flew that Vulcan in August, just a week before it was displaying at the Farnborough Airshow.
04:07Farnborough 1952, and the Avro Vulcan comes off the secret list.
04:11The world's first delta wing bomber, it sets new standards of load carrying.
04:15Faster, higher and further than ever before.
04:19The subsequent years he rolled it.
04:22Unimaginable for a bomber to be rolled at a public display.
04:27And he rolled it because he 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
04:42affirmed the success of such tactics during the war.
04:45The new importance of nuclear weapons made it all the more imperative
04:49that the world's nuclear powers had long-range delivery capabilities.
04:54Britain's Royal Air Force issued a requirement for a new aircraft design
04:58which could be based anywhere in the world,
05:01be able to strike targets up to 1,700 miles away
05:05and deliver a heavy bomb load from high speed and high altitude.
05:10One of the three finalists for the job was the Avro Vulcan,
05:14first flown on the 3rd of August 1952.
05:18The Vulcan's main distinctive physical characteristic,
05:21its large delta wing shape,
05:23was a result of the need for structural integrity and a large payload capacity.
05:33The first production model of the Vulcan, the B Mark I,
05:36flew in early 1955
05:39and after a major wing design change entered service.
05:52In the early 1950s,
05:54former chief designer for BAE Systems, David Nadin, was a young boy.
06:00He remembers the awesome sight of the first Vulcans
06:03flying around Avro's Woodford factory.
06:09I wound up at the hill at the back house,
06:11and I must sort of put my age on this, I was about 11, 11 and a half, 12.
06:16And over the hill came this formation of two Vulcans line astern,
06:22two white Vulcans, straight leading edge,
06:25with four small 707s on each corner, which is the model here.
06:31Actually in red, so they were painted red.
06:35And they were flying around the area of Maxfield, getting a formation right.
06:40And that went down to Farnborough in 1957,
06:44and you see pictures of that in magazines and papers at the time.
06:49I can't really explain it, but really this is where my desire was to get involved in aviation,
06:55was to get a job at Avro and Core Limited and work on the design side.
07:01Remarkably, having been inspired to get into aircraft design by the Mark 1 Vulcan,
07:07as a qualified designer, David Nadin would find himself working on the design of the Mark 2.
07:16Structurally the B2 is very similar to a Mark 1.
07:21Nose, fuselage, fin are the same, and the arrangement of the engines.
07:26One thing that distinguishes the Mark 2 is the bigger wingspan.
07:31And also, to get better aerodynamic lift out of it,
07:36they increased the actual leading edge kink line.
07:48The Vulcan's triangular delta shape was so ahead of its time,
07:52that even today her design concept is considered cutting edge.
08:01Comparison between first principal design sketches by her designer Roy Chadwick,
08:06dating to 1947, and today's B2 stealth bomber, reveal a striking similarity.
08:14The Vulcan
08:21Ever since it first roared into the British national consciousness in the 1950s,
08:26the nation's love for the Vulcan has never waned.
08:34Some enthusiasts have even taken it upon themselves to return one of these great V-bombers to the skies.
08:43The Vulcan
09:06Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome in Leicestershire,
09:09once a base for United States bombers in the 1950s and 60s,
09:13is the new home of Vulcan XH558,
09:17a home it shares with an impressive collection of Cold War jets.
09:21This unique museum has been put together by Bruntingthorpe owner David Walton,
09:26who in the 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 at Waddington.
09:50And when they learnt that we were from Bruntingthorpe,
09:53and they had obviously heard of the Lightnings still remaining taxable at Bruntingthorpe,
09:59they were quite enthusiastic about us becoming involved and putting a bid in for the aircraft.
10:06We knew that there would be significant interest,
10:10both from overseas, in the States and other countries, for the Vulcan.
10:17So we bid at £25,000, having had a fairly considerable amount of thought put into it,
10:23on the basis that we thought we'd get the money back by increasing our gate at the airshow if we were successful.
10:30We'd more than recoup that expenditure.
10:36In 1997, a small team of experts, headed up by aviation enthusiast Dr Robert Plemming,
10:43created a proposal to return Vulcan XH558 to flight.
10:50I came from an aviation background.
10:52I learnt to fly when I was 17,
10:55and 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,
11:11it was the wrong thing.
11:13I'm lucky enough to have the skills and the focus
11:20to put together a plan to return the aircraft to flight,
11:26and now, some ten years down the path, that's exactly what we're doing.
11:30We were informed that, although they couldn't tell us that we'd been successful,
11:35would we please turn up at Waddington for a press announcement about the future of the Vulcan,
11:41and please wear your best suits.
11:43And it was announced that we'd been the successful applicant.
11:47And thereafter, the rest is history, really.
11:50It's actually a passion shared by thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of people.
11:55This aircraft, it's a beautiful shape.
11:58It's also awesome to see.
12:00It's one of the sights that you never forget.
12:03It's like Concorde.
12:05And it's one of the reasons why a number of us are so keen to see the aircraft fly.
12:11You couldn't really say it's a cult of the Vulcan.
12:15It's more pride.
12:18I think pride would be the right word.
12:22When we met the station commander, he took us to one side and said,
12:26if you get the Vulcan to Bruntingthorpe and acquire all the spares that are available,
12:31keep it in good condition, one day there'll be an opportunity to fly it again.
12:36He says, I'm confident that when the story of the Black Buck mission has come out,
12:40somebody will want to make a film of that particular dramatic flight,
12:46and it'll be a fantastic film to be made for public viewing.
12:52But he said, there will be an opportunity to fly the aircraft again if you keep it in good condition.
12:56So I suppose that was the motivation, really, to keep systems live,
13:02keep the aircraft taxable, hang a bit through the winters,
13:05and gently, gently try to get all the things in place whereby at some stage in the future
13:13there would be an opportunity to return the aircraft to flight status.
13:26David Walton's decision to buy all available spares, manuals and paperwork in 1993
13:32has enabled the aircraft's current owner, the Vulcan operating company, to literally rebuild her.
13:42The aircraft is now in a state of what we call rectification.
13:46We're removing components which have been sent away to their original equipment manufacturers for overhaul.
13:52On their return, we'll start to put them back onto the aeroplane and onto the systems.
13:57So at the moment, we're looking at the structure, looking for any corrosion,
14:01we're looking for any damage to the aircraft.
14:04On their return, we'll start to put them back onto the aeroplane and onto the systems.
14:08So at the moment, we're looking at the structure, looking for any corrosion,
14:12any problems with the structure and repairing them accordingly.
14:15Then we'll put the components back on the systems and then we'll move into a function of 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 front of the wings.
14:27As you get nearer to the back, it gets a lot more restricted in height.
14:32We're looking for corrosion, cracking, pulled rivets or any signs of stress on the airframe totally.
14:39Yeah, 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
14:51and we purchased them in 1995.
14:54Now, in fact, we've done very little work to them.
14:56We've inspected them with a borescope technique,
14:59which has allowed us to look right down into the engines, mainly for corrosion.
15:04We've also removed the fuel system from the engines
15:07and they have gone off to BF Goodridge to be overhauled.
15:10The seals and diaphragms within them have aged,
15:13so as a critical-to-flight component, without it, the engine stops.
15:17We've had those overhauled.
15:19The work that we've done on the aircraft, we've followed the RAF documentation in its entirety,
15:24a thing called the Master Servicing Schedule.
15:26Now, because of the age of the aircraft, we've actually used the word, we've done a supermajor.
15:31What we've done is we've looked deeper into the structure of the aircraft than was previously inspected
15:37and we've done this with modern techniques, modern non-destructive testing.
15:42We've been working on the fin, looking down on the inside of the fin for any signs of corrosion,
15:48signs of rivets which are slightly loose, any signs of paint loss in the cylinder.
15:53There are lots of 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.
16:03It's saving an awful lot of time because to do the work that we've been doing by conventional,
16:08old-fashioned means, it would mean de-skinning one side of the fin, going in and having a look
16:14and 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
16:20without very complicated mirrors and sticks and things.
16:22It'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.
16:30Now, in the cockpit, we found the wire in superb condition because it wasn't exposed to any environmental hazard,
16:37rain, water, very little UV because it was in conduits.
16:41The problems we have found is outside of the cockpit area, in those areas like the undercarriage bay,
16:46where the wire, which is a rubber-based wire, has been exposed to the elements.
16:51So, we're doing this super major. We've looked at everything.
16:55We've inspected to modern techniques.
16:58We've also used lots of generic skills and we've replaced with serviceable items from our deep storage,
17:04which fortunately we had some 600 tonnes to look at, pull those components, inspect those components
17:10and then place them on aeroplane as and when required.
17:15The restoration project has been a major undertaking.
17:19Dealing with 60-year-old technology has required the retraining of younger skilled individuals
17:25to civil aviation authority and RAF standards,
17:28and the drafting of long-retired engineers onto the project.
17:33The knowledge gap was one issue.
17:35Funding for the project is a much larger problem.
17:41We believe it is probably the most complex aircraft restoration project that has ever been attempted.
17:48We estimated initially that we'd be looking for about £3 million, £3.5 million.
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 and Club members,
18:10who between them have raised huge amounts of money.
18:16Something like £2.8 million over the years, which is wonderful.
18:21But the key to getting this project on the way was an appeal we made,
18:26or application we made for a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund, which they accepted.
18:33And £2.734 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund was enough to convince us,
18:39first of all that we had a project,
18:41and secondly that we had convinced people that we had a national heritage asset that we were trying to preserve.
18:48That has been key to everything we've done.
18:52We were approached by the group three or four years ago now.
18:55They had acquired an interest in the aircraft and they wanted to restore it,
18:59and they asked us if we could put a grant towards the restoration.
19:02We took a look at the project. It seemed very interesting.
19:05It's quite unique in its way because it's one of the only aircraft that can be got back to flight.
19:10And eventually we decided, having looked at the risks to the aircraft,
19:14and assessing its heritage merit, that it was worth putting a grant into.
19:19So we were able to give them £2.7 million.
19:22It was quite a decision for us. We 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
19:33and that it's going to be safe both to fly and for the public.
19:37However, despite lottery backing and countless hours of hard work,
19:42in the summer of 2006, a funding crisis threatened the entire project.
19:49I had a very, very unhappy task at the end of July of 06
19:56to come up to Bruntingthorpe to put our small but highly professional staff on one month's notice to close.
20:05The project was dead, or looking to be dead, because of lack of cash flow.
20:12That was a sad thing and we had a roll-out planned for 31st August
20:17and at that time it looked as though that would also be the end of the project.
20:24After millions of pounds and nearly 10 years of dedicated effort,
20:29the Vulcan team were about to see their dreams turn to dust.
20:35The Vulcan Operating Company
20:43The Vulcan Operating Company have battled for many years
20:47to return their beloved Vulcan bomber to the skies.
20:51However, in the summer of 2006, their dreams were dashed as a funding crisis hit.
20:58They needed to find over one million pounds in just four weeks,
21:03or the entire enterprise would collapse.
21:09Well, on that 31st July date, we'd calculated, looking forward,
21:14that we would need 1.2 million pounds in order to ensure that the aircraft flew.
21:20And that was a tall order, 1.2 million in less than four weeks.
21:26That sum was raised, in cash and in pledges.
21:29It was an absolutely remarkable achievement.
21:32Sir Jack Heywood, and I think everybody now knows this,
21:35a great British philanthropist and former RAF bomber pilot, incidentally,
21:41offered us 500,000 pounds.
21:44That was matched, exceeded even, by the work of the friends and the club,
21:49who, between them, in cash and pledges, raised 700,000 pounds.
21:54We'd got our 1.2 million in less than four weeks.
21:58That was remarkable.
22:01The cheques continued to come in,
22:03and on the day of the roll-out, on the 31st August,
22:07cheques were still coming in.
22:09I collected a cheque from a well-wisher for 60,000 pounds,
22:1210,000 from another, and I should mention,
22:15a young schoolboy who said,
22:17I've only got 92p left from my pocket money, will that do?
22:21And we said, absolutely, and took it.
22:23So he's had a stake in this as well.
22:31With funding back on track,
22:33we could once again look forward
22:35to seeing the Vulcan bomber back in the skies.
22:41But the financial support,
22:43and in particular the lottery funding given to the project,
22:46wasn't just to see crowds wowed at airshows.
22:49It also had to educate Britain's younger generation
22:53about the perils of nuclear war.
22:55A remarkable irony,
22:57as the Vulcan was once one of the most deadly weapons ever devised,
23:01and a deterrent against the Russian threat
23:04that nearly ended in World War III.
23:07A dark period in history
23:09that legendary author, former RAF pilot,
23:12and Vulcan fan, Frederick Forsyth, remembers well.
23:18The Cuba missile crisis started with a photograph.
23:21Well, actually, a lot of photographs.
23:23They were taken by a very high-flying American U-2 spy plane over Cuba.
23:27And when they were developed,
23:29what they showed was a number of clearings in the forests,
23:32and inside the clearings what appeared to be sticks,
23:35but they were not sticks.
23:37They were rockets, and they weren't even defensive rockets.
23:40They were Soviet attack rockets,
23:42and they were aimed directly at the heart of the USA.
23:45Well, as far as President Kennedy was concerned,
23:48that was not acceptable,
23:50and he called Mr. Khrushchev over in Moscow
23:53and told him, quite literally, to remove them.
23:56Khrushchev refused. In fact, he went further.
23:58He said that a number of further Soviet vessels were on their way to Cuba
24:02with further rockets and rocket parts.
24:04The American response was to put a line of U.S. Navy warships
24:08in the sea east of Cuba
24:10between the oncoming Soviet vessels and the land.
24:13And then President Kennedy said,
24:15if you cross this line, we shall sink your ships.
24:18And Khrushchev replied, if you do,
24:20we will regard that as a declaration of war.
24:23They were literally staring at each other a few inches away,
24:27face to face.
24:31If America was attacked,
24:33the retaliation would involve British Vulcan bombers attacking Moscow.
24:37This threat led to the construction of top-secret nuclear bunkers
24:41around the UK.
24:44This is one of three existing bunkers
24:48buried deep under the fields of England,
24:51unbeknownst even to the agricultural workers
24:54who plough the fields far above our heads.
24:57This is where the secret government,
24:59after a nuclear wipeout, would have taken place.
25:02Of the various times and occasions
25:05when danger seemed particularly high,
25:07there's one that still stands out
25:10so clearly that it raises hackles
25:12on the necks of those who remember it well.
25:14It occupied one long and very sweaty weekend
25:17in October 1962,
25:19and today it's simply referred to as the Cuba Missile Crisis.
25:24And it was the time when we probably
25:27came closest to global nuclear war.
25:32VULCAN BOMBER AIR ELECTRONICS OFFICER
25:39Attention, attention, this is the bomber controller
25:42for bomb list Sierra.
25:44Scramble for bomb list Sierra.
25:46Scramble.
25:48Bomber controller out.
25:53One man who experienced the pressures of being on nuclear standby
25:57during the Cold War
25:59was former Air Electronics Officer Mike Pearson.
26:03On every V4 station,
26:05four B-bombers would be positioned
26:08at the end of the main runway.
26:11They would be loaded up with the type of weapons
26:13that they were tasked with dropping,
26:16and by this I mean real live nuclear weapons or atomic weapons.
26:21What we would wear would be air-ventilated suits
26:24which were next to our skin,
26:27flying overall,
26:30then G-trousers, pressure trousers,
26:33of pressure jerking,
26:35and then on top of that we would wear a Mae West.
26:38And we wore that for 24 hours.
26:41So we slept in it,
26:43and it was very uncomfortable because
26:45all the connectors, tubes,
26:47came out to a thing down the side,
26:50like a single connector, a chute-type connector.
26:54And trying to get to sleep sometimes was very difficult.
26:57Our aim would be to get four Vulcans airborne
27:00in about a minute and 40 seconds.
27:04So from stone cold, in other words nothing running,
27:07to actually getting airborne,
27:09we would do it in about a minute and 40 seconds.
27:15This ultra-rapid scramble time was of course essential.
27:19Any slower, and the retaliating Vulcan fleet
27:22would be caught up in the devastating blast
27:25when Soviet nuclear weapons struck the UK.
27:28The irony would be that even if the Vulcans
27:31successfully launched missiles against Moscow,
27:34the aircraft would have no airfields to return to,
27:37as the initial Russian attack would have wiped out the UK.
27:46By the time of the Cuban crisis,
27:48doubts were surfacing about the ability of the RAF
27:51to pierce the defences of the Soviet Union.
27:54The shooting down of Gary Powers in a U-2 spy plane in 1960
27:58confirmed that the Soviet Union did have surface-to-air missiles
28:02capable of reaching the heights that bombers operated at.
28:06The new mantra became ultra-low-level attack.
28:10Instead of operating at over 60,000 feet,
28:13the Vulcan crews would now be operating at under 250 feet.
28:19This would not only avoid surface-to-air missiles,
28:22but allow pilots to use the new bombing technique called flick-bombing,
28:27which saw the pilots do a 90-degree climb at the point of bomb release.
28:31The extra inertia created by this manoeuvre
28:34would literally throw the bombs at the target area.
28:39The air ministry realised that the surface-to-air missiles
28:43that the Russians had could get us.
28:46So, hence, we went low-level.
28:49And I did one of the first low-level flights on my squadron.
28:53And this consisted of flying out into the Bristol Channel,
28:58heading for the island of Lundy, coming inland.
29:02We then had to climb to get over Lundy,
29:05drop down again, cross the coast,
29:09turn left, up over Snowdonia,
29:13then drop down again to coast out at a place called Rill.
29:19On one of our trips, we were coasting out over Rill,
29:25and we disappeared into the mist.
29:29And when we got back,
29:32my wing commander operations came to me and said,
29:37where were you just before midday?
29:40And I looked at my log and I said,
29:43oh, 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,
29:51the Vulcans used to trail a lot of black smoke.
29:55Throughout the 1970s and early 80s,
29:58the Soviets were still very much a threat at sea,
30:01and a number of the remaining airworthy Vulcans
30:04carried out a vital reconnaissance role, working with the Royal Navy.
30:09Well, I served on 27th Squadron for about two years
30:12in the maritime radar reconnaissance role.
30:14I was a co-pilot.
30:16And our main job was to fly to about 20,000, 25,000 feet,
30:19and the radar navigator would map the ocean,
30:22that's looking for ships, and mark them down on a grid,
30:25which he would transmit openly.
30:28Our submarines would pick up the information,
30:30and they knew where our ships were,
30:33and therefore anything left was the enemy shipping.
30:37The other role we did was to go down and look at Soviet ships,
30:41the military ships, and take photographs of them,
30:44so that we could send them back for analysis,
30:46looking for any new weapon systems they had on board the ships.
30:51Despite their vital work at sea,
30:54the end was nigh for the Vulcan fleet.
30:57The RAF began the decommissioning process
30:59by disbanding No. 230 Operational Conversion Unit at Scampton
31:04on 31st August 1981.
31:07The remaining squadrons of Vulcans
31:09were scheduled to close at the end of June 1982.
31:14It seemed a low-key ending to a fantastic career
31:17for a groundbreaking aircraft.
31:19Some of her crews wished she could end her service in style.
31:29Then, on 2nd April 1982,
31:32Argentine forces under the command of Admiral Carlos Busa
31:36invaded the British territories of the Falkland Islands
31:39and South Georgia in the South Atlantic.
31:43The House meets this Saturday
31:45to respond to a situation of great gravity.
31:48We are here because for the first time for many years,
31:52British sovereign territory has been invaded by a foreign power.
31:57After several days of rising tension
32:00in our relations with Argentina,
32:02that country's armed forces
32:04attacked the Falkland Islands yesterday
32:07and established military control of the islands.
32:13It became clear within the first few days of the Argentine invasion
32:17that their recovery of the Falklands
32:19would entail a major military operation,
32:21spearheaded by the RAF.
32:24For the heavy bombing roles,
32:26there was only one aircraft which could perform the job.
32:29The Vulcan bomber.
32:31Plans to disband the Vulcan fleet were suspended
32:34and all flight crew leave revoked.
32:42Following the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands in April 1982,
32:47Vulcan disbandment plans were suspended
32:50and the training of flight crews
32:52in conventional bombing operations
32:54and in-flight refueling had commenced.
32:58However, as former Vulcan Air Electronics Officer Barry Macefield explains,
33:03it was training which was fraught with danger.
33:07Because the aeroplanes hadn't been used for in-flight refueling for decades,
33:12all the seals and couplings in the refueling probe,
33:15which pokes out from the front of the nose,
33:17they had all dried up and perished.
33:19And every time we tried to make contact with the victor tanker,
33:23the fuel would escape from the front of the probe,
33:26would come over the front of the windscreen,
33:28would be squirting down the side of the aeroplane.
33:31What worried me more than anything else,
33:33being in charge of all the electrical equipment,
33:36was the fumes which possibly were in the cockpit.
33:38There was lots of arcing and sparking going around here.
33:41Are we going to end up as a big fireball?
33:45Despite the dangers, training continued
33:48until finally the Vulcan was deployed in anger
33:51on bombing raids codenamed Black Buck.
33:54Their mission required them to fly a record-breaking 7,700 miles
33:59between the nearest available base,
34:01Wide Awake Airfield on Ascension Island,
34:04and Britain's own runway in enemy-occupied Port Stanley.
34:08Then, after many hours of flying,
34:11they must destroy the runway,
34:13preventing the Argentines from using it as a base for air attacks.
34:20It was a very difficult operation.
34:22The Vulcan, as I say, was about to go out of service.
34:25As always, the Royal Air Force,
34:28the armed services, in this case the Royal Air Force,
34:31pulled out all the stops, as did industry, incidentally.
34:34And between us all, we cobbled together
34:37a plan to put a bomb on the airfield and the runway at Port Stanley.
34:43An 8,000-mile round trip from Ascension Island,
34:48the longest strike bombing mission in history at that time,
34:53and it was all done on a little bit of a wing and a prayer.
34:56The thing which attracted me to the story
34:58was that somebody had had the imagination and the ambition
35:01to even dream it was possible.
35:03They were being asked to bomb a target
35:05which was going to be the same distance from London as Hawaii is,
35:10near the Arctic Circle, over 4,000 miles of open sea,
35:16without anything more to navigate over that sea than a sextant,
35:19the same sort of thing that Nelson would use.
35:22The shape of that story and the challenges involved
35:24seemed to me very similar to a story like the Dam Busters.
35:28It was, OK, here's an impossible job, go out and do it.
35:31You haven't really got the tools for it, but don't let that bother you.
35:34And through a combination of ingenuity, pluck, bloody-mindedness,
35:40they managed to put together something that works.
35:44These operations have justifiably developed an almost myth-like status.
35:49The planes were flying apart, not truly fit for service,
35:53the danger of enemy attack extreme
35:56because the Vulcans had no fighter support.
35:59And because of the incredible distance involved,
36:01a remarkable piggyback refuelling strategy
36:04had to be devised using the Victor tanker.
36:09The whole principle of the air-to-air refuelling
36:12is that the aircraft is topped up all the time
36:17to 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,
36:24unless you've got an aircraft with a really long range,
36:28you need to refuel lots of times.
36:30So we were scheduled to refuel five times on the way down to the South Atlantic,
36:36and then we would then set off full to do the attack,
36:40and then some hours later we would meet up with a Victor off the coast of Brazil
36:46and then fill up with enough fuel to get us back to Ascension Island.
36:50With all the odds stacked against them,
36:53the Vulcans and their brave flight crews soared into war,
36:57and their finest hour.
37:00I was acutely aware that all the lights and everything were on the airfield.
37:05It felt very, very cold-blooded to go in and just drop bombs on people.
37:09Because at that stage, you had no animosity towards them.
37:12You weren't actually feeling you were defending your own troops or anything like this.
37:17It was just a cold-blooded attack to drop a bomb.
37:20And it was then just a matter of just holding the thing really steady
37:24and hoping that we were aiming at the right point.
37:27And then the second that the last bomb had dropped,
37:31just banging the aircraft and getting the hell out of there.
37:34The thing that ran through my mind at the time was
37:37there was no flak coming at us.
37:39I was expecting sort of lights of flak to be going past us.
37:42But also there was no orchestra playing.
37:44And again, you know, we had never done this before.
37:47I'd only ever seen it on the movies.
37:48And on the movies, when you're going for a bombing run,
37:50there's the orchestra in the background playing away.
37:53When news spread that the first Black Buck Vulcan raid
37:56had achieved its seemingly impossible mission,
37:59it sent a wave of euphoria around our armed forces and at home.
38:05What's your reaction?
38:06Just rejoice at that news
38:08and congratulate our forces and the Marines.
38:11Good night.
38:15The seventh and final Black Buck mission
38:17was flown on the 11th and 12th of June
38:20and delivered airburst bombs.
38:24Although only minor damage resulted from the Black Buck missions,
38:28the May 1st attack had been awe-inspiring.
38:32It delivered a warning that no combat aircraft
38:35would be safe at Port Stanley.
38:38Consequently, no Argentinian fighters landed there.
38:43The Vulcans heralded Britain's unwavering response
38:46to the Argentinian aggression,
38:48a testament to the RAF's stoicism and invention
38:51in the face of adversity.
39:02Few retired aircraft retain the mystique enjoyed by the Vulcan.
39:07For many years,
39:08people have dreamed of seeing Britain's last flying Vulcan bomber
39:12in the skies again,
39:13but never dared believe the day would come.
39:17But now, that dream is fast becoming a reality,
39:21as after ten years of tireless work
39:24and millions of pounds in funding,
39:26Vulcan XH558
39:29is almost ready to take her rightful place in the skies once again.
39:37I think that our team here
39:39will have achieved a remarkable feat
39:43in returning this aircraft to flight.
39:45It's demonstrably the only project
39:50of its size and complexity in the world,
39:53and it'll be a real inspiration to others
39:58that such things are possible.
39:59It's 14 years now since I last flew the aircraft,
40:02and certain things do dim.
40:05I've been fortunate because I've been able to operate several Vulcans
40:09during the intervening years,
40:11for instance, 655 down at Wellsbourne, Mountford,
40:14which we operate every year for a couple of episodes,
40:17up and down their runway,
40:19and just showing her off to the public.
40:21We're going through not only the aircraft systems,
40:23but things like what happens when things go wrong,
40:26because things are always going wrong with mechanical things,
40:29so practicing abandonment drills and the like from the airplane.
40:35Well, we've been trialling the new parachute,
40:38which is a parachute which has been used by the Air Force,
40:41but it's had to be modified for our use on the Vulcan
40:44to incorporate the use of our personal survival pack,
40:48which we need in an emergency situation
40:50should we have to bail out of the airplane.
40:53And so the gentlemen have come along with a couple of parachutes today,
40:56and myself and Andy are trialling them.
40:59We've played inside the airplane
41:01and seen how difficult it is to get strapped in with these things,
41:04so a modification is going to have to be made to the parachute
41:07to incorporate the strapping-in process.
41:10We've just done a suspension trial
41:12from me hanging on this forklift trolley,
41:15which presented its own little problems.
41:18Everything seemed out of place,
41:20the straps and release handles
41:23weren't exactly where I thought they were going to be.
41:26The thrill of being on the project is the fact that it's such an iconic aircraft.
41:29I saw it in my service career,
41:32and it's an absolute pleasure to be able to work on it.
41:36And the fact that we were able to return it to flight,
41:40show it to the public, is a fantastic opportunity.
41:45And as a final seal of approval,
41:48XH558 has a special visitor before her final roll-out.
41:53Baroness Thatcher.
41:56Well, after nine years of toil and effort by some of us,
42:02and over five for the majority,
42:05we're going to get this airplane back in the air.
42:08I have a body of trustees who've put every effort
42:11into helping this project along,
42:14in terms particularly of fundraising.
42:17And it's been a remarkable effort by a lot of people.
42:27The team have been working incredibly hard to get it ready,
42:30obviously for today, the taxi runs, get those out of the way.
42:33And thankfully they were all successful, there weren't too many snacks to pick up,
42:36a few minor niggles, but nothing major.
42:39And on with today, really.
42:42The team is pretty focused, as you can imagine.
42:46We had a really successful day yesterday with the fast taxis.
42:51And today, just looking around me, it's a beautiful day.
42:55It's just right for flying, and I hope we'll be doing that slightly later.
42:59It's a tremendous achievement that the team have done.
43:03It's taken a long time, it's taken a lot of money.
43:07But I keep thinking back to when I was in the Air Force and flew these things,
43:12how it would take about three months to do a major service.
43:16It is an icon of British engineering.
43:18And when you think that that wonderful shape,
43:21which still looks pretty modern, doesn't it,
43:23was designed, first drawn 60, 6-0 years ago.
43:27Yeah, we're just checking the last things on the aircraft,
43:30but otherwise things are looking really good.
43:32When I see it down the runway, my heart will go out to the crew,
43:37knowing that this is the first time any of them have been in
43:41a live Vulcan in the last 10, 12 years.
43:46I'm going to feel enormously proud.
43:48It's almost like watching your baby take its first few steps, really.
43:51Having seen the jet from being in a basic state, stripped down,
43:55and slowly building it up over time,
43:57and bringing the systems to life, bringing the aircraft back to life.
44:00It's going to be amazing to finally see it go up.
44:02Feel the pride, feel the pride.
44:04It's just unbelievable.
44:06I was here in 1993 on the Vulcan display team when we brought it here,
44:09and little did I know, sort of 15 years later,
44:11I'd be back here again, actually being the crew chief,
44:14and getting it back up into the air again.
44:16It's just been unbelievable.
44:18Marshals 1-5, Marshal 1-5, Bruntythorpe Radio.
44:22You are clear for take-off at your discretion.
44:26Bruntythorpe, ready for take-off.
45:09Marshal 1-5, Marshal 1-5, Bruntythorpe Radio.
45:17Next, a feature-length special explores the morality and military effectiveness
45:21of the mass civilian bombing in World War II,
45:24from the Blitz to the devastating Allied raids on Hamburg and Dresden.