threat you were facing and determined the
countermeasures used.”
Julian participated in several Red Flag
deployments to the US: “It was a great
improvement over training at home. Fighters
were up looking for you; our job was just
to get to the target at low level to deliver
our weapon. It was an extremely realistic
environment, even over the desert. The
Americans had all the equipment that the
Soviet air defences were using at the time.
Equally important, it was all operated using
Soviet procedures. The whole idea of Red
Flag for us was not just to get through to
the target, but to do so using our standard
operating procedures. If something was
wanting in our procedures, we had to change
them.”
Graham Gaston remembered clashing
with fighters closer to home: “On occasions
we would practise fighter interceptions out
over the East Anglian coast. On rare good
visibility days, flying at around 44,000ft we
would even see the Lightnings take off from
Binbrook and then climb steeply. If we were
lucky they started contrailing which made
them very visible. One great thing about
the Vulcan was its manoeuvrability, even
at low speed. The captain turned into the
Lightning to do a head-on pass, which meant
it could not get a firm missile lock. He then
deliberately dropped our speed and lowered
the undercarriage. As the Lightning shot
past, the captain reversed our course, turned
back into the Lightning and kept doing thisuntil the fighter got short of fuel a few minutes
later and had to break off the engagement.”GIANT VOICE COMPETITION
RAF Vulcans regularly visited the US to
participate in Red Flag exercises and
Giant Voice bombing competitions against
US Strategic Air Command aircraft. The
RAF made special preparations for the
November 1974 competition at Barksdale
AFB, Louisiana, in which Adrian Reynolds’
crew participated. It involved SAC Boeing
B-52s and two General Dynamics FB-111
squadrons, 27 SAC tanker units, plus the
four RAF Vulcans and their crews. Adrian
explained: “We had not done too well in a few
earlier events. It had clearly been decided
at a high level that we should prepare much
more thoroughly for this competition.”
The crews began a two-month work-up
period in the UK, with the equipment on their
Vulcans being progressively fine-tuned. As
well as the usual two radar offset points
that could be programmed into the existing
navigation sets, another ‘box’ was installed
giving four more offsets. This enabled very
precise position fixes to be obtained. “We
went out to the US a few weeks before the
competition, roughly knowing some of the
routes, we practised flying them.”
At the time, navigating precisely over
water was difficult. “Our preparation even
involved using tide table and ocean current
data to enable us to more accurately calculate
our position over the Gulf of Mexico.” Thecompetition involved high level, low level,
plus a six-and-a-half hour astronavigation
sortie. Virtually every part of each mission
performance was scored, including the
important ‘time over target’. “Our three
crews were all in the top five, with the OCU
[operational conversion unit] crew winning
the competition’s top bombing and navigation
prize. It was a great three months”.
Graham Gaston detailed what it meant
to be assigned to the famous Dambusters
unit: “Life on the squadron was good. It was
quite big with 11 five-man crews, plus all the
crew chiefs and groundcrew. Vulcan crew
chiefs were always a particularly key part of
the squadron. Each was assigned a specific
aircraft and they regularly travelled overseas
with the crew to oversee ground ops and
aircraft maintenance. We had a very distinctive
squadron identity. We were fortunate enough
to be on a unit that virtually everyone knew
about because of the Dambusters. If you
were part of it, you certainly made something
of it. Going into a squadron dinner to the
Dambusters March was very special.”
After nearly 23 years in the strategic
bomber role, 617 Sqn was the first Vulcan
unit to disband. On December 11, 1981,
Vulcan B.2 XL318, captained by the OC
Wg Cdr John Herbertson, overflew the
Ladybower Reservoir and Derwent Dam
which were famously used to rehearse for
the unit’s famous World War Two raid. The
squadron disbanded on the Vulcan on
December 31, 1981.http://www.aviation-news.co.uk 47This well-travelled B.2, XL444, served with 9, 27, 35, 44, 50 and 101 squadrons,
in addition to spending time with 617. The Aviation Photo CompanyA most unusual scene – a 617 Sqn Vulcan is followed down a Toronto International Airport taxiway by Air Canada Boeing 727, C-GAAC, on August
26, 1980. AirTeamImages.com/Caz Caswell42-47_dambusters_617_vulcansDC.mfDC.indd 47 06/04/2018 15:31