The most beautiful?

When one considers the most aesthetically pleasing aircraft ever built, the Avro Vulcan is certain to be mentioned. The Avro Vulcan was a delta wing subsonic jet bomber operated by the Royal Air Force from 1953 until 1984.

The Vulcan was as part of the RAF’s V Bomber force, an independent nuclear deterrent against the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but the concept was developed in May 1944, long before the end of World War II.

The design concept paper, “Future bomber Requirements,” envisioned a jet development of another beautiful aircraft – the de Havilland Mosquito. Like the Mosquito, this new bomber was to have long range, a heavy bomb load and be unarmed, using high altitude and high speed as its only defense.

By 1946, the paper had crystallized into Air Staff Operational Requirement 229, and on Jan. 14, 1947, three companies – A. V. Roe, Vickers and Handley Page – were asked to produce such a bomber to deliver nuclear gravity bombs against the Soviet Union.

In the end, all three designs were approved and the bombers became the V Bomber forces – the fairly conventional Vickers Valiant, the crescent wing Handley Page Victor and the Avro Vulcan.

Politically, the acceptance of the basic concept or nuclear attacks on the Soviet Union, much less buying three types of bombers, was surprising since Great Britain was governed by a Labour government that seemed decidedly pacifist. Still, even the Labour government wanted to keep the country’s “seat at the table” with the United States and the Soviet Union as a true nuclear power, and the V Bomber force would do that.

The Avro design, the Type 698, was a futuristic looking delta flying wing that gave the required combination of a large, thick wing to carry a great deal of fuel and four internally buried engines, combined with a 52 degree sweep back that allowed it to cruise at a high Mach number.

A vertical tail was soon added to the design, and Avro began testing the configuration in 1948 with a small scale prototype – the Type 707.

The 707 crashed, but tests showed its potential of the wing and work continued on two prototype Vulcans. The first flew Aug. 30, 1952, and the second prototype was completed a few weeks later. The two prototypes, in what was to become the standard V Bomber all white paint scheme to reflect the flash from a nuclear bomb, made several flights at the annual Farnborough Air Show on Sept. 3, 1953, receiving rave reviews from the aviation press.

The two prototypes initially flew with a straight leading edge on the delta wing, but when high powered Olympus engines were installed in early 1954, high altitude tests showed that buffeting began before the Vulcan reached its normal cruising Mach. The buffeting cut into the range of the aircraft, made it an inaccurate bombing platform and eliminated any possibility of evasive maneuvers.

Fortunately, a fix was found. A “kinked” leading edge on the wing, forward of the spar that was easily incorporated into the production line, eliminated the need for a new wing. The “kink” reduced the 52 degree sweep by 10 degrees at mid span, and then the 52 degree sweep was reinstated further out.

In service, the Vulcan was generally very popular with excellent performance aided by a fighter-like stick instead of a control column. In 1955 at the SBAC Farnborough Airshow, an Avro test pilot demonstrated the aircraft’s capabilities by performing an upward barrel roll immediately after takeoff.

Still, there were problems. The Vulcan operated with a crew of five – two pilots, two navigators and a flight engineer – but only the pilot and co-pilot were provided with ejection seats. There were cases where the pilot and co-pilot were able to eject while the rest of the crew was killed because there was no time for them to bail out the door in the floor ahead of the nose gear; in other cases though, the entire crew survived.

Another unique feature of the Vulcan was a display board on the pilots’ control panel that showed the position of the eight control surfaces at the rear of the aircraft, since they could not be seen from the cockpit, as well as a rearward looking periscope to check the bomb bay and landing gear.

Vulcans frequently visited the United States during the 1960s and 1970s when they were wildly popular at air shows and static displays, as well more serious mission such as participation in the Strategic Air Command’s Annual Bombing and Navigation.

The last 28 Vulcans had hard points for pylons for the standoff American Skybolt Air Launched Ballistic Missile but the Skybolt was cancelled by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1962. This meant the Vulcans would have to penetrate Soviet air space at low altitude, and the new profile called for the Vulcan to give up its all white color scheme for the standard low level brown and green camouflage. A total of 134 Vulcans were produced; the last was delivered to the RAF in January 1965.
During the 1982 Falklands War with Argentina, five Vulcans, even though long in the tooth, were selected for “Black Buck” operations against Argentine targets.

The Vulcans’ defensive systems were updated and wing pylons were fitted where the Skybolt hard points remained in the wings to carry an ECM pod and Shrike anti-radar missiles. The Vulcans’ first mission was from April 30 to May 1, 1982, when they flew the 3,889 miles from Ascension Island to bomb the airfield at Stanley, setting a the world’s longest distance bombing raid record.

The Vulcans flew three missions against Stanley and two to attack Argentine radar installations with Shrike missiles.

For questions or comments, contact Dr. Michel at marshall.michel@ramstein.af.mil.