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The Victor


jaxx
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Working in and being a bit of an Aerospace nut, im quite keen on aircraft, in particular the military side of it :yes:

And if you were to ask me my favourite air craft of all time, youd get a quick response of the 'Handley Page Victor'

The Victor was a British built jet bomber and part of a trio of aircraft, known as the V-Bombers, in which its brothers in arms were the Avro Vulcan and the Vickers Valiant.

The Victor was originally penciled to carry the 'Blue Steel' British nuclear arms orif you didnt fancy vapourising someone or something that day, then you had the option of 35 1000lb bombs, either way it would ruin your day if you were at the wrong end of it!

There were various version of the Victor all mainly serving in the Gulf war, some of them running the arms and the others were very successful in flight refuel aircraft.

Having a wing span of 120ft and a total height of 28ft, its not the biggest aircraft in the world, nor indeed is it a large aircraft for its desired purpose, but with 4 Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire A.S.Sa.7 turbojets, stuck to the wings, producing 11,000lbs of thrust...... each!! :D This made it a very quick aircraft with a top speed of somewhere around 650mph! There is supposidly some reports of Victors hitting the sound barrier utilising gravity in a shallow dive, but they lacked instrumentation to firmly document it.

And in this instance, after the trip to Track Attack at Brunters i managed to finally get up close and personal to Bruntingthorpes own Victor that they keep for show days. :D

Known as 'Teasin Tina', she is a series K2 refuel craft, now retired from service and no longer allowed to leave the ground :( but still draws the crowds for the open days when shes wound up to full bore down the run strip, perhaps just to lift the nose wheel before hitting the brakes (which apparantly costs around £2,000 PER GO!)

So heres the pics i grabbed a little up close and personal....

Parked up

trackattack06025.jpg

trackattack06030.jpg

huge sculpted air intakes (red bungs are to protect the engines) the little pictures of petrol pumps are how many succesful mission the aircraft completed, in this case it was around 30, if it was a bomber it has little pictures of bombs :P

trackattack06027.jpg

wouldnt like to see this in the rear view :P

trackattack06029.jpg

artwork, tasty :drool:

trackattack06028.jpg

fuel tank

trackattack06032.jpg

refuel line pod, the small prop on the front is like a wind turbine that drives a mechanical pump to pump the fuel down the line and to the trailing craft. This was so they didnt have to use electric powered pumps that could potentially spark or store static energy that could cause the fuel to ignite, dragging the Vic and its tag along out the sky!

trackattack06033.jpg

nozzle in the back of the pod, this would extend out on a long fuel line

trackattack06034.jpg

huge vee shape tail plane

trackattack06039.jpg

trackattack06038.jpg

air brake details, sort of 'semi open'

trackattack06040.jpg

two of those sapphire engines :D i also love the way the ailerons are moulded round under the shape of the engines

trackattack06035.jpg

close up

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yeehah!

trackattack06036.jpg

and finally a few random pics i found from the net

heres tina in action! with a couple of friends! (the thing that looks like a basket is the nozzle you can see earlier)

k2refuel.jpg

and blasting around on one of the open days

victor.jpg

:thumbsup:

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Fantastic pics chappy. :thumbsup: I had the great priveledge of flying in one of the last Vulcans to fly out of RAF Waddington many years back. :yes:

The old saying is very very true..... They don`t make them like they used to. :(

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its two bros

the valiant

Valiant.camou.750pix.jpg

superb shot of one refuelling another great, an English Electric Lightning!

xd860xm172.jpg

and the vulcan

vulc1v.jpg

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Great thread! :thumbsup:

I particularly remember seeing the Vulcan flying at a few airshows quite a few years back. Very impressive.

A link that may be of interest clicky (possibly just a tad NSFW due to one ad - set pic size to "medium" and you're good to go!) :thumbsup:

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actually says it ran RR Conways on there aswell :unsure:

edit

had a look look round and other websites confirm the Saph's which i thought was right anyway :wacko:

also found out Teasin Tina spent some time in SR2 spec as a spy plane!

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Yes, wondered about the engines myself but the pics were nice.

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quite possible the engines were rebadged as rolls royce or vice versa as certain companies collapsed

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Interesting read and great pics! Nothing to do with the topic really but I flew a light aircraft a few months ago. God that was scary...

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Great thread! :thumbsup:

Fantastic to get such up-close pics. I once (years ago - I was still at school) had a prod about the outside of a Vulcan at an air museum somewhere near Lincoln but I didn't have a camera :(

Wish we'd got to see the engines of the ferry though :(

A

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Amazing pics Rob....

The most amazing thing for me is the aerodynamics and how they get these huge, get beautiful aircraft flying....

British aircraft are the best! :thumbsup:

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Sound photos. That really looks like it was meant for the job of dropping something and getting the hell out!

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Great pictures there.

I actually saw a Victor in...errr...1996 at RAF Akrotiri, when their open days were still open to the public. Was an awesome aircraft when I saw it, but there were so many other planes there as well, it was difficult to take them all in! Had my picture taken in the cockpit of an F4 Phantom, as well as enjoying a flight in a Gazelle and Sea King. Cracking day out, just a shame that the planes are now out of service :(

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Great thread! :thumbsup:

Fantastic to get such up-close pics. I once (years ago - I was still at school) had a prod about the outside of a Vulcan at an air museum somewhere near Lincoln but I didn't have a camera :(

Wish we'd got to see the engines of the ferry though :(

A

Hi mate that place near lincoln could either be RAF Waddington where they have a rather large air show every year (international air tatoo) or it could've been newark air museum. they have got on which was donated to them by the RAF for free. all the museum had to do was pay for the fuel to get it from RAF waddington to the museum ( it's next to an air field) which insidently cost about £5000 for a trip the way the crow flies is about 6 miles!!!!! :eek:

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Wouldnt mind seeing it's nose lift on an open day, but it costs so much money for them to do it!

And as I've said before, we share the name Tina so how can I not like it :lol::lol:

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:drool:

I remember watching some of the last public displays of the Vulcan at the Abingdon Airshow in the 80's... you know, the decade with proper airshows when the crowds were almost at risk of decapitation because the planes came in so close :laughing:

Ahhh the good ol' days :thumbsup:

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Amazing pics Rob....

The most amazing thing for me is the aerodynamics and how they get these huge, get beautiful aircraft flying....

British aircraft are the best! :thumbsup:

yes they are! :yes:

i agree, the Vic was designed and built in the 50's on prototype, back in the day when aerodynamics really did play a big part and a handful of big thrust engines were all the rage!

these days its all down to sofisticated electronics that keep aircraft in the sky (in particular jet fighters) using very shallow profile wings but constantly adjust angle and trim of the ailerons etc etc....

chris, mainly got shots of this one but ill work on t'others

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Here you go Rob a few seconds of !Removed! :thumbsup:ENJOY

Wow, that plane has got such a strong "presence" about it :drool:

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Wouldnt mind seeing it's nose lift on an open day, but it costs so much money for them to do it!

eh??? and eh??

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