Black Buck One, the Vulcan Raid on the Falklands - Animated

two weeks prior to this moment the Avro Vulcan howling down the runway on Ascension Island had not performed an air-to-air refueling in many years after a crash training course in the dangerous skill the crew embarked on a 9,000 mile journey that would become at the time the longest bombing raid in history 11 Handley page Victor tankers have taken off with the two Vulcan bombers one is to make the attack and the other is a reserve that will return home after the first refuel however within minutes of the final aircraft taking flight the mission suffers its first setback the crew of Vulcan X M of five nine eight the primary Vulcan discovered that the cabin is not pressurizing because of the leak in a cockpit window they are forced to return to base on Vulcan X M 607 becomes the aircraft that will carry out the attack on the second of April 1982 Argentine forces landed on their claim to the South Atlantic British territory of the Falkland Islands the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher demanded the islands back and immediately ordered a naval task force to set sail from the UK to reclaim this would be a dangerous operation the nearest UK territory was Ascension Island more than three and a half thousand miles away and the British task force was vulnerable in that its air defense would rely heavily on two aircraft carriers the Argentine Air Force could take off from Stanley airfield on the Falkland Islands and used the dangerous xsf missile against the Royal Navy a weapon that would later destroy British ships the only aircraft capable of carrying the ordinance to disable the runway at Stanley was the Vulcan an aging bomber approaching retirement designed to drop nuclear weapons in western Russia it didn't have the range to complete the enormous round-trip for an ascension and it hadn't performed conventional precision bombing or air-to-air refueling in years an enormous engineering effort was required to get the fueling system working again and the pilots scrambled to learn and refresh their skills it would take 11 Victor's hankers and a very complex refueling plan to put one Vulcan over the target there was very little contingency for error in fuel calculations and equipment failure soon after Vulcan five nine eight aborts Victor Excel 163 callsign white 4 discovers a problem with its refueling equipment and also returns hope Victor X age 669 the reserve tanker replaces white for at around 1:45 a.m. the formation enters the first of three refueling brackets the victors begin to pair up to exchange fuel until the receivers tanks are for the top Victor xl5 one one callsign blue one refuel vulcan 607 at the conclusion of the first refuel all of the empty tank victors turn towards Assumption with the exception of blue one who stays with the Vulcan to top it up once more and near the end of three filled brackets one the aircraft have been split into three color-coded sections white red and blue the mission is taking place in total darkness so the grouping of aircraft into refueled groups makes locating the correct tanker for the correct refuel a little easier blue one gives 607 final top-up before turning back to ascension the crews of the returning victors are discovering that there is a big problem all aircraft in the formation are using much more fuel than planned for not only is this raising serious doubts of the achieve ability of bringing the Vulcan home to ascension but the returning aircraft themselves are seriously low on fuel the attacking force enters fuel bracket to read for briefly receives fuel from red to before giving fuel onto white - it takes around 20 minutes in close formation to complete the transfer after which red for turns for hope the Vulcan then sorts in behind red - to receive its next refuel and simultaneously wipe to refuel zweite for 15 minutes later and with refuel bracket to complete another victor makes the turn back to base back is ascension for Victor's are taking off their mission will be to get the single victor to meet with and refuel the Vulcan on this homeward journey the reserve tanker discovers an equipment failure shortly after takeoff and returns home if there is another problem in the remaining three the Vulcan will not make it home the 30 year old Victor's and Vulcans are showing their age 3,000 miles south of ascension white to refuel 'z the Vulcan they're flying into trouble as a violent electrical storm forms around them after the refill is complete the aircraft begin to lurch around in the turbulent air whitefall whose job will be to continue on with the bomber for the final refuel pulls up behind white to to attempt contact with white twos trailing fuel hose flight left hand and big lens battles to keep his aircraft under control as the hose in front of him is flung around in the strong winds he makes several failed attempts but finally makes a good contact between his probe and the hose the success is short-lived a particularly violent oscillation in the hose shears the probe clean off the big lens Victor they've only taken on half of the fuel they need to continue south with the Vulcan after discussion between the aircraft they decide to improvise whitefall will give its fuel back to white - white - will continue on the long shot with the Vulcan instead after swapping positions Squadron Leader Bob Duxford makes a good contact but after a particularly violent oscillation in the hose he disengages and pulls away saving his aircraft he battles several more times to re-engage with the trailing hose finally and Sirius tablished his contacts with the hose the crew began to see the horizon and stars ahead of them and as they feel the clean stable air they realized they've made it through the storm after the refuelling is complete white 4 turns north the remaining two aircrafts decide to perform one more short refuel to make sure that white Falls probe is not lodged inside the hose this is completed successfully and they're to continue South white twos tanks are desperately short of the fuel needed to give to the Vulcan for it to have any chance of making at home after the bomb run they decide to give what they can and let flight lieutenant Martin withers in the Vulcan make the final decision whether to abort or press home the attack had the completion of the final refuel with is a shot to find that they are 7000 pounds of fuel short he's furious y2 tells him that if he turns north with them he can have more fuel after briefly following them in the turn where this changes his mind he transmits over the radio that we're off and turned south toward the Falkland Islands with 300 miles to go with us begins his descent the plan is to run in a low level the low radar coverage pulling up only a few miles from the target to perform the bomb run on the runway at Stanley the onboard radar will be switched on at the latest possible moment to scan the terrain and get a final position fix the radar on the old bomber is h2s radar first used on Lancaster's during the Allied bombing campaign of World War two the bombing computer still uses pulleys and string with 40 miles to run withers climbs the Vulcan ready for the bomb rock within seconds argentine search radars are spotting the aircraft an air defense systems including roland surface-to-air missiles and 35 millimeter autocannon are preparing to grease them at two minutes the target withers opens the bomb bay doors and the cockpit erupts with warnings as three argentine fire control radars begin to attempt to lock onto the aircraft ready to guide anti-aircraft weapons against them the crew attempt to jam the enemy radar to prevent a lock on their on the bomb run as little more they can do now a howl over stand the airfield and the 21 1,000 pound bombs begin to fall away from the aircraft the incident the last bomb releases with us throws the vulcan onto its side and pulls into a steep turn away a ferocious Wallis autocannon fire flashes skywards they must escape before the Argentine Roland batteries get a missile shot away Allah the crew feel the shockwaves of the explosions as the bombs explode they don't know it yet but they've scored a single direct hit on the runway and as the enemy radar warnings fade away they realized that the immediate threat is over however they still need to find a way to get home the ops room bakit ascension have scrambled a Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft carrying droppable lifeboats and survival equipment for the crew if the Vulcan needs to ditch in the Atlantic Vulcan crew requests that the tanker meets them much further south than planned with us hands over control to his co-pilot to fly towards the plan in point and takes the opportunity to get some well-earned sleep the mission began at midnight and it's now around 8 a.m. if they are to make it home they still have another five hours of flying ahead of them as they approach the RV he returns to the cockpit and checks the fuel situation in his entire career he has never seen an airborne Volkman that has so little fuel onboard the Nimrods has come to the end of his range and has already turned back to ascension if they ditch now they won't survive without life rafts desperately searching the sky for the lone Victor their luck finally changes Victor xm7 1:7 rolls out directly in front of them how is extended with minutes to spare before their aircraft falls from the sky marcin withers and his crew realized they're going to make it home the mission was deemed such a success that further missions were ordered a single 1,000 pound bomb had crated the runway preventing Argentine fast jets from taking off against the British task force until repairs could be carried out furthermore the Argentine military worried about further Vulkan attacks against the mainland and pulled fighters back to defend Buenos Aires fighters that would otherwise have been deployed against the vulnerable British fleet steaming south to reclaim what was rightfully theirs

Channel: The Operations Room

Views: 695,531

Rating: 4.8889828 out of 5

Keywords: falklands, vulcan, vulcan 607, handley page victor, avro, raf, black buck, black buck one, martin withers, air to air refuelling, falkland islands, xh558, xm607, vulcan to the sky, vulcan to the skies, vulcan 558, war, history, documentary, animated, time-lapse, time lapse

Id: e5yAtuYPHK4

Length: 10min 43sec (643 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/moomooland]

that was fantastic and i’ve rewatched it several times.

how many subsequent bombing runs were there?