The Vulcan

[David Martin]

Flying over the house last Saturday - or was it Sunday? Still awesome...

[Didier]

Lead guitarist of this group http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfxx8sPRV7s is a professional pilot at Air France, formerly on Concorde, and now on 777.
The group doesn't exist anymore, it was called "Shads in the Sky". This was recorded in 2008 (I was there). I guess they played "The sound of silence" for a change !...

Didier

[Bill Bowley]

Part of an email I received, worth 'clicking' on the link and viewing all the aircraft they have there, slowly going to waste. There's even a Vulcan there!

Regards to all



When Castle AFB was alive and well at Atwater (California), the base established a great collection of old warplanes. When the base was deactivated, the adjacent town of Atwater took over the museum but it doesn't have the resources to properly maintain them and they will slowly deteriorate into junk heaps, Shame!
Http://ronstoppable.proboards.com/index ... thread=191

[iferrier]

A Vulcan crashed in my village in the 70's I think?
Google Wingate Vulcan.

Having said that, I think they are beautiful aircraft.

Ian

[barryg]

Bill,

Thanks for the Castle link. That's a fabulous collection and there's some aircraft there I've not seen before. Would love to go there myself sometime.

Glad the Red Arrows are getting back in the air after the crash here at Bournemouth last week. No accident details relaeased that I've heard about but I presume there were no mechanical failures found that may have affected the other Hawks.

Barry

[davec]

Dick,

There’s some connection between Vulcan and Concorde but no conspiracy I’m afraid. It’s more a case of convergent design/evolution.

The Concorde project was born in 1954 when civil airliners were subsonic, propeller driven and with monococque/stressed skin construction. Pure-jets were the province of the military. The only pure-jet airliner at the time was the DH Comet --- and that had just been grounded because of structural problems. So any proposal for a 100 seat supersonic aircraft would have specified very powerful jet engines and very strong construction --- not “over engineered”, just “military engineered” --- and that’s exactly what happened. In effect Concorde is a military aircraft designed to carry a civilian payload. The construction of the wing and fuselage is more “hewn out of solid metal” than “assembled from parts”.

In 1954 the Bristol Olympus engine was already developing over 11,000lbs thrust and was an obvious candidate for military propulsion. The Vulcan showed the way a really big aeroplane could be built with a delta wing and demonstrated how the control aerodynamics would work. In 1959 the BSEL Olympus was pushing out 17,000lbs and this was fitted to the Vulcan.

By 1962 the Rolls-Royce Olympus 593D variant (with variable exhaust nozzle and reheat) as specified for TSR2, was developing 28,800lbs. It was the obvious candidate for the Concorde propulsion system and by 1975 the RR593-610 was good for 32,000lbs with reheat. The variable intake system effectively doubled the output from the engine and was the reason Concorde was able to fly at Mach2 without reheat.

Reheat was used for take-off, turned off (shortly after take-off) for noise abatement, turned on again to accelerate through Mach1 and off again at Mach1.7, whereupon the aircraft would continue to accelerate to Mach2.0.

Some variation of that intake system has appeared on virtually every supersonic military aircraft since!

DaveC

[Bill Bowley]

Bill,

Thanks for the Castle link. That's a fabulous collection and there's some aircraft there I've not seen before. Would love to go there myself sometime.

Glad the Red Arrows are getting back in the air after the crash here at Bournemouth last week. No accident details relaeased that I've heard about but I presume there were no mechanical failures found that may have affected the other Hawks.

Barry

Barry,

Did you pick up the mistake where he referred to the B36 as having six turbo props? As most would know, all B-36s featured six 28-cylinder Pratt & Whitney R-4360 'Wasp Major' radial engines (and the four underwing turbines of course). Still, good read and 'look' I thought!

Regards

[Detailed Infinity]

The Vulcan is laid up at RHADS for the rest of the season. Mechanical failure during the summer. Some qualms about the annual costs as the income from air shows have been missed due to having to cancel summer circuit displays.

The guys are relying on visits in the hanger at RHADS by the public and various corporate events within the hanger itself and the V close up and personal.

Bri

[Didier]

Dick,

There’s some connection between Vulcan and Concorde but no conspiracy I’m afraid. It’s more a case of convergent design/evolution.

The Concorde project was born in 1954 when civil airliners were subsonic, propeller driven and with monococque/stressed skin construction. Pure-jets were the province of the military. The only pure-jet airliner at the time was the DH Comet --- and that had just been grounded because of structural problems. So any proposal for a 100 seat supersonic aircraft would have specified very powerful jet engines and very strong construction --- not “over engineered”, just “military engineered” --- and that’s exactly what happened. In effect Concorde is a military aircraft designed to carry a civilian payload. The construction of the wing and fuselage is more “hewn out of solid metal” than “assembled from parts”.

The Concorde program was the result of merging projects developped on both sides of the Channel. In France it was know as the "Super Caravelle" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sud_Aviati ... -Caravelle

Didier

[barrygroves]

In researching Giant Voice, the USAF annual bombing competition, I came across this forum and found Barry Gillam's (BarryG) post on 27 September 2009. I was there and could have written what he did!!! Except I was at McCoy in 1970. The SR71 was there then as well and we were given a display of the U2 which could take off and climb to 60,000 feet without leaving the perimeter of the airfield.

We also put on a display with the Vulcans. One did a low-level pass crabbing to such an extent that it looked as if it was flying sideways. The jet exhaust was at a distinctly visible angle to the direction of flight. The Americans were astonished at a Vulcan could do.

Finding this forum sent me off in another direction, and I found a picture at http://www.avrovulcan.org.uk/vulcan_peo ... _close.jpg which had me on it! And it's a better photo than the official copy I got at the time. If you go up the the exact centre of the picture, to the second rank from the front and turn right, I am the first man in KD. I am wearing a beret quite high with a lot of forehead showing. If you want to see what I look like now see the picture at the top right of http://www.second-opinions.co.uk

Incidentally, I was a chief tech based at Scampton at the time.

Oh, happy days.

Barry Groves