Inside The Cockpit - Avro Vulcan B.2

hello everyone and welcome back to military aviation history I am your host Bismarck and today we will be talking about a very special plane to strategic bomber Avro Vulcan futuristic and avant-garde it occupies a very special place in aviation history and is one piece in the puzzle of the British me bomber force let's talk all about its history and then hop inside this one found here at the RAF Museum in London to find out all about this plane [Music] the story of the walking kicks off in the smoldering embers of world war ii and 1947 roy chadwick averroes Technical Director proposed a DeltaWing bomber to meet a new air ministry specification be 45 - 46 these specifications call for a near doubling of the speed and operating altitude of the present strategic bomber force Avro was mirrored in this by Handley page who proposed the Victor and Vickers with the valiant but that's a story for another time the shorts Baron was also in the run but more as a plan well D I guess in the mid 1940s the DeltaWing was a novelty while its basic characteristics had been understood designing a strategic bomber especially of this size around such an arrangement was yet another affair many foresaw issues such as control and stability problems after all it departed from the very tried and proved wing and tail designs that had been developed over the past 40 odd years yet it held much promise from performance over to load carrying capacity and Avro was prepared to take the risk before building a full-on prototype small-scale tests were conducted in wind tunnels to test the design the Avro 707 was built incorporating elements from existing designs to save a lot of time and effort so just for example the meteors cockpit this was a single-seat mid wing Delta swept at 51 degrees powered by the rolls-royce Dermott 5 turbojet while it was a proof-of-concept it had various issues shown off in September 48 9 it received a lukewarm welcome the flying triangle as one observer called it was off to a bad start crashing a month after its first public appearance actually killing the test pilot the second prototype the Avro 707 B appeared a linear later with some changes to the gear the cockpit and the nose while at high speeds had still suffered from turbulence air starvation and structural weaknesses in the wings it had more stable characteristics so much so that actually a surprising amount of pilots got to test fly it which is unusual for a prototype one major change was that the air to intake had to be changed for the dorsal position to a wing root one this would overcome the air starvation issue and was tested with the third prototype the Avro 707 a the letter actually reversed to the airframe not the version hence the backtracking there with high speed tests in 1951 we might assume that the plane was tested to go supersonic this was not a case the final product was meant to go subsonic anyway a second 707 a was built followed by a two-seater 707 C in 53 as testing continued Avro started construction of the other type six nine eight the full-scale bomber version roughly three times the size of the smaller 707s it's at this point that the Vulcan also receives its name various options were discussed including Apollo this one was discarded on the ground at and I quote before logical names are not ideally suited to this unique British achievement and quote three weeks later it was called the Vulcan I guess the methodology was suddenly no longer a problem once they realized the Trinity of the V force by now the Cold War was heating up but the RAF was well yet to make a final choice on whether it really wanted to embrace a strategic bomber force it had a choice between three designs the victor the valiant and what would be the Vulcan it adopted all three of them which is somewhat Italian of them and thus we established the V force in 52 it finally ordered the service version of the Vulcan designating it there walk'n be bought one the first version vx7 7-0 was about to be completed anyway so this was pragmatic rather than a betting man's approach after completion the prototypes featured prominently in public displays not without buying our accidents but you know that's to be expected anyway and it's outlandish design well it became a public sensation by 55 the first Vulcan Mach 1 be easy once rolled out of production lines and at this point a new wing design was also tested as g-forces at high altitude had an undesirable effect on the outer wings the solution was to change the sweep angle on the leading edge introduced a sort of curvy appearance and the introduction of vortex generators above the wing to re-energize the boundary layer by 1956 roughly ten years after being put to paper the Vulcan was accepted into the RAF number 230 operational conversion unit and number or 83 squadrons were the first to receive the Vulcan joined by number 101 and six 1/7 squadron again just like with the prototypes tragedy struck before success on returned from a goodwill flight to Australia with Air Marshal Broadhurst as copilot owing to poor visibility and Vulcan touchdown several hundred metres short of the runway only the pilot and the Air Marshal survived as they had ejection seats and then vx7 7-0 was actually destroyed two years later when it broke up on a high-speed low pass during a commemorative Battle of Britain display while in production several changes to the design followed its wingspan was increased the ailerons and elevators while the elements really switched to a full span elements control and the engines and electrical systems were upgraded the plane was slotted to receive additional countermeasures against enemy defences as well as the Vulcan was considered out of reach or owing to its design too maneuverable or too fast at high altitude it had never really been given weapons itself to be used against enemy interceptors initially to be used as a horizontal platform it was now meant to receive the air-launched rocket-propelled nuclear armed standoff missile known as blue steel the mark ii then appeared on the scene with blue steel introduced in 63 as a deterrent and potential strike tool against the soviet union but very quickly the situation began to change the Vulcan haven't been phased into the server's have perhaps taken too long it was expensive and the theory that had born the design was starting well to fall to pieces the onset of strong ground-based air defense of high altitude the strategic bombing became in practical the Vulcan finally able to embrace the role it was determined to hold became ever more marginalized and proved the practical application and part of the budget soon enough the Royal Navy actually became the primary British nuclear deterrent by 1970 the Vulcans as existence was one of sole seeking the tragedy of its existence was that it was superfluous just as it had come into its own it's like telling a kid on his 18th birthday that he'll never be able to afford a house to stay relevant the Vulcan had to adapt improvise overcome and so it did although envisioned as a high-altitude strategic strike aircraft it was now relegated to low-level tactical operations 20 years of planning when essentially out of the window but it meant that the Vulcan had a future bite not really a Rosalyn over soon and was shifted over to maritime reconnaissance and finally slotted to be disbanded in the 1980s the story of the Walker could indeed have ended in obscurity yes it had captivated a large ordnance and presented itself ever as an innovative design and yes it had been a valuable deterrent for a certain amount of time but the Vulcans actual use in its attendant role had been diminished exponentially the irony is that the advanced design of this aircraft alongs other strategic bombers in the West was the very reason why it lost some of its potency to every action there is an equal opposite reaction and a fret like this one could not be ignored by the Soviet Union which developed potent ground-to-air countermeasures with the news countermeasures introduced the strategic shift towards maritime defense at these and amongst Brits became more obvious and the Vulcan became an expensive toy with little immediate use as the more flexible and modern tornado was introduced the days of this aircraft seemed numbered to the rescue of the Vulcans flight came Argentine and showing that in one final salute the Vulcan would end its career in triumph as they were being mothballed the Falklands War kicked off in 82 this conflict with considering the writing of some tableau it seemingly never ended so the first and last operational use of the wall can and is perhaps the very reason why the plane became enshrined into the chronicles of history as more than just a side note really fitting out a force of five Vulcans reeked whipped and refurbish Britain flew multiple long-range attacks against Argentinian occupied airfields in the Falklands for this the refueling probes had to be fitted again and well this was a whole other affair because they had to be found first I can't really go into it here but suffice it to say that for example one of them actually came from a museum over in the US the crews also had to be retrained in mid-air refueling something this aircraft had not done for like 15 years used in a conventional bombing role as well as see the vocal performed admirably considering the vast difficulty involved in the missions yet had all sorts of serfs mentioning that its effect could have been a lot less had a j'tia actually made better use of its AAA units and been more diligent in its logistical support and airfield repairs that's not taking anything away from this word though because it was essentially the only aircraft in the RAF Arsenal capable of launching such strike so enough talk let's get hands-on with this aircraft now before we go inside the little heads up here the evoking is of course clued by a cruel or if at least unusual circumstances now this walk in here when they were obviously preparing the Air Force for the focalin swore these plans were essentially being mothballs as already alluded to this means that to actually get the aircraft into the air that they eventually use they had to take you know a whole lot of instruments and devices and equipment out of their whole fleet of Falcons just to make sure that five of them actually flew so once we're inside you'll see that some of the stations especially forward enough radar the nav plotter and dae-o you'll see that a lot of stuff is missing but that is because this aircraft essentially sacrificed itself so that the other Vulcans could fly that being said the carpet is actually pristine so [Music] careful not to back your head and a pillow going into the crew compartment you are faced with three different options you have the nav radar right here but enough Potter to his right and then you have the AEO the air electronics officer over there in order to actually get to your crew station you just got a swivel your chair if you're the navigator or the aeo the nav plotter would actually have a fixed seat and then you would be faced with your instruments now as you can see they are missing their story to that already alluded to death but the enough radar operator would be obviously operating radio which would be in front of it right here he's also doing a lot of the bombing of the Vulcan for this he house who has a bombing computer that allows him to launch his ordnance in so many different ways for the primary navigation of the aircraft and a spot over right next to him would be would be sometimes working actually with the radar operator as well but generally he would also have the instruments that would allow him to get a VOC into the place that it's supposed to go once we move to the aeo we'll also see a couple of other instruments that would be used during the operation of the aircraft the AOS job would for example be also operating the countermeasures of the aircraft red shrimp and all that good stuff additionally he for example has this periscope right here he can check whether the ordinance has struck properly and throughout the whole table here you have couple of compartments where you can store some of your work devices below the desk you also have free heaters for food that takes about 90 minutes to prepare you've got the oxygen tubes right here and of course although we don't see it right now we've had all sorts of instruments in the volcan that could be used during the operation of the actual aircraft one of the things you obviously notice in the Vulcan is or it's dark and as you can see he right here there's only two windows in the crew compartment that you can actually get some light in this was done on design for example for the nav Raider was very important that he actually has good contrast on his screen but also in the case of a nuclear flash you don't want to expose your crew to that sort of light sensation so there's good reasons why why there was a little bit cost of four and sort of dark in here so just below the pilot in the copilot seat you have this little space right here in the mark one this was used for visual bombing really the Bombardier would be down here looking at what he's going to be targeting and releasing the ordnance in the mark - of course a lot of that switched over to a radar assisted bombing so it wasn't really uses used anymore beyond that it could be used as a sort of storage space so if for example with that latch hatch behind me you could actually cover this window here and then you'd have the ladders in here you had some kit that you might be in want to store for the journey and for the falklands operations the Omega navigation kit was also stored in here for the rest really it doesn't really have that much used in the later models of the walkin but it's a little bit of free room that the crew can actually use in case of a need that really around this up on the back here let's move up front to the cockpit and the copilot seat so getting into the cockpit is going to be a little bit difficult but mounting up on the ladder here in case of an emergency during the Cold War you had a four minute response time via pilot while get into the seat actually only had has to hit a switch to his left here flick it and all four Olympus engines will start at the same time it's obviously accelerated departure significantly he would then move up even further sort of swiveling twisting towards right trying not to hit himself too much but I guess that's not a priority at that point and then he would set himself inside and once he's actually seated the amount of room you have right now even though you know you consider the Vulcan to be a massive bird the room you have here and in the control compartment is sort of a bit cramped but you do have enough space to move in and this is actually a cockpit considering the fact that the actual space it occupies is about for small quite a comfortable piece to the left we would have the main controls for the radio up front obviously we have the controls of the flight controls and define instruments through in the middle pedestal here we've got your photo controls we've got the instruments related to the operation of the then going over to the copilot seat where the cameras situated right now we would have essentially the instrument panel that the pilot has just mirrored to his right would be a lot of instruments to having to do a few and then in the central pedestal right here which we just deploy like so we'd have more switches related to the operation of the engine and the fuel supply of the Vulcan now let's go through this in a little bit more detail so the control stick of the Vulcan is actually quite an interesting one now you are probably used to this movement right here in order to go left and right or Bank the aircraft essentially and then what you'd expect essentially a sort of a hinged movement in if you were using your elevator so something that goes essentially backwards at an angle or forwards at an angle well in the Vulcan as with for example modern aircraft like civilian aircraft like the Cessna or even the big airliners you actually have a pull and a push like so which makes it very distinct to a lot of the aircraft of the time which operated there you stick very much in the same way as you would be used from World War one and World War two so yeah that's quite a interesting little control input device right there going for the instruments right in front of the pilot we'll start with the altitude and autoland indicator right here we've got a Mac counter optimally going to Mach 1.3 what can never really reach that speed first place I've got the Vario meter here showing your climb or descent we've got the MF s the military flight system here we've got your speed and knots I've got the altimeter right there we've got a beam compass and then we've got an artificial horizon and turnin slip indicator right there and moving over to the right and we'll see a lot of the instruments that are related to the actual operation of the olympus engine so you've got the RPM counters for each engine we've got the oil pressure for each engine top from your engine displays you have the return indicator on your control inputs right here in the vulcan we have L ones and not the traditional setup of ailerons and elevators so your control inputs would be corresponding of course visually displayed for here with the water up top just as you would expect said centrally between the engine dials you've got your undercarriage switch and you've got a return indicator whether you're under couches locked or unlocked you've got your fuel contents from the fuel tanks per one per engine set here and then of course we're moving over to the throttle controls one for each engine that's number one that's number two number three number four which you could obviously operate in unison just like so to the left we have the parking brake operated by the pilot right here and then to the right we also have the air brake that you can see quite nicely they're visually indicated with the yellow and black stripes that's essentially then rounding is up here and then on the copilot side you'll see that a lot of this is actually sort of mirrored from the pilot side in a slightly different setup but there is a relative bearing indicator that we have right here that the pilot does not have above the engine you have two interesting switches first of all you have to ram air turbine release you'd pull that right there if you have film the electrics and that will give you an all axillary electrical supply and then we have warning lights right here for the engine so one two three and four those would light up in case the engine temperature becomes excessive you can press those and you would deploy essentially a fire extinguisher that would take care of the excessive heat and hopefully also the flames for vision outside you'd have well your free main windows up front you'd have a side window on each side for one for the pilot and you'd have of course one for the co-pilot and then you have your director which window right here which you can open and close in the Vulcan of course you also have a couple of dimmers that you can use for when you're flying above clouds in the Sun or something like that you just fold them down there would be another one here for the main window and the ones on the side and just slide them down just like so now one of the dangers of course of operating a strategic bomber nuclear-capable you clear strike aircraft really was the fact that a nuclear flash could happen at any point in time if the Cold War went hot in that case if there was a danger of this the crew could actually completely seal themselves in like so of this cloth here and completely seal themselves off visually from the outside so that no light would penetrate into the carpet and blind the actual crew apparently in those cases where there was a danger for Vulcan crews to be blinded by flashes there was also the standard procedure of having the pilot and the crew at the co-pilot wear an eyepatch so if a nuclear flash would happen out of the blue all of a sudden and one eye would essentially fail to her to to work you could just switch over the eyepatch and you still have one eye to work with one other thing that deserves mentioning at this point perhaps is that when in during the Falklands War the Vulcans had to refuel they carried a sixth six crew member he would be standing pretty much where the camera is right now where you are right now and he would be guiding the pilot would be sitting here visually into telling him where he has to go in order to get the nozzle correctly placed for to allow air refueling this was really just a special stipulation for those sorts of missions as usually as has already alluded to before every fueling was essentially scrapped in the walk and 15 years before the Falklands War kicked off you wanna ask yourself how does the crew actually get out well for the pilot and for the copilot is relatively easy they have martin-baker ejection seats and as long as they go over 90 knots they can use those without any problem for a crew here in the back things are well done a little bit the way in you're in a medieval way just like you would essentially do it in World War 2 they had to get up well the enough radar and Ayoo would swivel their chairs and then they would be able to get out that way whereas the knife plotter essentially has to wait for one of them to get out of to see it and then he can follow and then the ejection is essentially done manually when it comes to the Vulcan it is difficult to make a final assessment really for most of its life the aircraft went from one identity crisis to the next of costs that did not correspond to its actual practical value once introduced into the yeah it might sound a little bit like a downer for a plane that is so fondly remembered to by many today but I don't think it's necessarily wrong without taking anything away from the actual aircraft itself its design its story it's coming-of-age had it not been for the Falklands then the Vulcans would probably not even be remembered half as much as they are today for me the Vulcan is a beautiful aircraft it stood at the cusp of what was achievable when beyond that it emits a very sort of graceful or encapsulating a passion for aviation discovery technological progress it also became a victim of its own existence a story is steeped in both triumph and tragedy when it comes down to it it's it's a very human plane thank you very much for joining us on today's episode and I want to thank the Royal Air Force Museum for letting us get close with their woken if you want to actually sit inside this woken that they have here at the Museum just follow the link in the description below that will give you all the information and please also consider supporting this video and this channel with a patreon subscription or by sharing this video and as always I hope you guys have a great day good hunting and see you in the sky these are meant for clicking you can do so right now just click

Channel: Military Aviation History

Views: 85,564

Rating: 4.9517407 out of 5

Keywords: Avro, Vulcan, Falklands, Black Buck, Inside The Cockpit, Cockpit, Military Aviation History, History, Education, avgeek, aviation, RAF

Id: NFGkZPPNrkA

Length: 24min 55sec (1495 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 16 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Massive-Gas]

Go to Port Stanley Airport, Falkland Islands, on Google Earth and you can still see some craters from one stick of bombs just to the south of the runway. The rest appear to have been filled in.