Issue No. 10 Winter 2003

Sunday June 15th 2003 – Back In Business!

Unique photograph opportunity was allowed when Air Traffic Control allowed Charles Toop to be next to the runway on the western side of the airfield. See more on page 8.

IN THIS ISSUE………….

Page 1 Run Day 2003 Page 2 Engineering Report Page 3 Engineering Report Continued Page 4 ‘As Others See Us’ Page 5 News items Page 6 Volunteer Profile Page 7 Run Day 2003 Photo Album Page 8 Run Day 2003 Photo Album Page 9 From One Delta to Another Run Day photos taken by Charles Toop

655 NEWS 1

The Palouste starter, which had been the

ENGINEERING REPORT object of so much work by Eric Ranshaw, By Derek Powell was finally put to the test by turning the

main engines - and it worked perfectly. This If you were able to read the last report which was published in April, you will know that although means we now have an alternative way of starting 655 should we have problems with the aircraft was back in one piece for the first time in many months, we had lost out to the weather our other starter. Ground equipment is vital and were behind on our planned repair schedule. to our maintenance programme as was demonstrated by the GPU problems which Notably, the work to remove and refurbish numbers 7 and 8 had not even started and we had last year. This year it has been our venerable Hydraulic Test Rig which failed so this task was postponed until after we had held our taxi event. Preparations for this started with a faulty magneto. This was repaired by immediately the weather allowed with completion D H DAY, a Swindon based company who hand rewound our faulty unit and gave us a of the repaint at the top of the list. As well as putting an immaculate aircraft in front of the three year guarantee into the bargain. The company specialises in classic and vintage crowd, it had been arranged that BLAKEWAY PRODUCTIONS were to film 655 during the engine restoration. weekend of the run to provide footage for a Talking of ground equipment, it reached my

Channel 4 programme about the V Force and is ears that a piece of Vulcan stock was lying scheduled to be shown on TV in the New Year. in a builders yard not far from Wellesbourne. Upon investigation, this The last report mentioned the fitting of a proved to be a bomb hoist power unit. It’s dehumidifier in the cockpit to prevent further basically a hydraulic pump driven by a Ford deterioration especially to the instruments, some Popular side valve engine. Two large of which were out of action. hydraulic rams hoisted a clutch of seven To help us out in this very specialised field 1,000lb bombs in a cradle straight into the Coventry based company CSF Ltd which is part bomb bay. Three lifts and you had a full of the AIR ATLANTIQUE group offered us the load. The hoist needs much attention, services of their instrument repair facility. Some having apparently been in the yard for over instruments proved beyond help however and we 20 years. Now, if anyone should just happen are most grateful to Paul Hartley who donated to know the whereabouts of seven 1,000 instruments for use in 655. The dehumidifier has pounders…………… certainly stopped the rot but much work needs to With the run day fast approaching and be done on the instrumentation and this will painting proceeding apace it looked as if we continue over the winter months. were set to have a smooth ride. WRONG. With only a few of weeks to go the bomb VULCAN TO THE SKY – LOTTERY GRANT. doors failed. Investigation quickly showed a faulty Time Delay Unit in the operating The campaign to save an important part of Britain's aviation heritage took a circuits. With no spare and the unit major step forward on Thursday 11 impossible to repair it looked as if the doors December with news that the Heritage would have to stay firmly shut. Lottery Fund (HLF) has awarded a Stage Once again however the Vulcan community One Pass of £2.5million towards the came to our rescue and David Walton from purchase and restoration to full flying condition of Vulcan XH558. Bruntingthorpe provided us with a Whilst this is not a guarantee of serviceable spare from their stock. Also, as a funding from HLF, the Vulcan to the back up, we had one on loan from RAF Sky Trust now has the go-ahead to Waddington and thanks go to Flt Sgt Brian pursue its second stage application to the Fund. Jones, who is responsible for the 655 MaPs offers its congratulations preservation of XM607 there. and wish all the best to the VOC in its endeavour to return XH558 back to flying display.

655 NEWS 2

Engineering report cont’d Again Washford Engineering interrupted their On the Saturday afternoon before run day, very heavy workload to manufacture the

David and the crew started 655’s engines, did special parts we needed. the checks and carried out a short taxi - surely The overhaul of the cockpit instrumentation we were home and dry and set for our pre run and electrics has just started and will be day evening meal with the crew. WRONG. overseen by Dale McCann during the winter As David taxied back there was an explosion months. of hydraulic fluid from in the nosewheel bay On the civil engineering side, we have long area and crew chief Mark Alcock called for known that the entrance to the pan where we an emergency engine shutdown. Part of the keep 655 needed some attention. Extricating nosewheel steering ram had come adrift due and returning 655 on a pan designed for to a missing bolt and this allowed hydraulic Wellingtons has always carried the risk of fluid at 3,500psi to escape in spectacular putting the wheels off the concrete and has fashion. To cut a long story short, the caused more than a few anxious moments for engineers worked to clear the problem which the driver of the tug, usually Mark or Fred. The was finally fixed just as it was going dark on situation is made worse by the fact that an area almost the longest day of the year. It was after of concrete in the pan mouth is in poor midnight when most got to bed faced with a condition. To address these problems we have 06:00 start. Thanks to Selwyn and Andrea decided to have the mouth of the pan widened Smith, John Foreman, Fred Barter, Malcolm and the weak area reinforced. The quickest and

Campbell Ritchie, James Partridge and Mark cheapest option for the reinforcing is to cover Alcock whose efforts ensured that 655 would the weak area with ½in steel sheeting. Richard be ready for Sunday. David Thomas and the Dick immediately picked this up as a challenge crew were at Wellesbourne early on Sunday and in a very short space of time secured the morning to power the aircraft up and test out donation of some 3 tons of steel from SIMS the nosewheel steering. As an added bonus METALS LTD. In the past, Sims Metals was for the members of the public who had turned known as Birds Metals and they incidentally up early, David taxied 655 across the runway were given the job of scrapping many of the and parked up in front of them. Vulcan fleet.

No major snags were reported after the run The widening of the pan will be undertaken by except the failure of the crew door to close. STEVE KENDRICK who is a local builder The door of course closed perfectly when and has agreed to carry out the work virtually tested after the run but that just seemed par at cost for us. We have yet to set a date for this for the course. Everyone we spoke to to be done. remarked on how smart 655 looked on her Not exactly engineering work, but within the outing and this was due in no small measure last few days we have completed negotiations to the unstinting efforts of Dave Gladwin and with EXXON/MOBIL LTD who will sponsor his helpers. much of the fuel costs for 655 for the next

With a very successful event behind us it was twelve months. Again, Richard Dick was time to catch up with our maintenance instrumental in obtaining this sponsorship for programme. Numbers 7 and 8 elevons have our biggest recurring expense. now been removed to have all the bearings Work on 655 will continue during the winter and pivot pins replaced. months as the weather allows. We are seriously All the new parts required have been considering ways to provide a hanger for the machined in stainless steel by WASHFORD aircraft but with the obvious scale of the cost ENGINEERING LTD. This will prevent the involved this is far from an easy option. problems of corrosion from occurring again Finally, my thanks go to everyone involved in this area. Also receiving treatment are the with 655 MaPS either as an aircraft worker or drive chains for the port side airbrakes which as a member of the support group. are showing signs of serious wear.

655 NEWS 3

As Others see Us

The following article is an extract from David Scott-Morgan’s soon to be published book entitled ‘Patterns in the Chaos’ and is reproduced with his kind permission.

Outside the flying training club where I work at Stratford there is an aeroplane parked up, slowly trying to corrode away. It is no ordinary aeroplane, not even the same shape that most aeroplanes are – it has no tail plane but instead one gigantic delta-shaped wing. It sits there, year in and year out, grandiose and resplendent in its blue and grey camouflage, like a sentinel guarding the club, the airport, the empire! (for sure it doesn’t know the empire has faded and equally for sure no one has the heart to whisper such a blasphemy within its earshot). It is a ‘Vulcan’ bomber and it is big. It’s massive wing swallows up four engines of a type that became the basis for powering Concorde, and the whole delta shape of the Vulcan was a precursor to the supersonic design. The difference is the vintage – whereas Concorde first appeared in 1969, the Vulcan is almost twenty years it’s senior, first flying in 1952.

But there are dark things about this behemoth – the darkest being that it was designed to atom bomb Russia. And its name – ‘Vulcan’ – is also suspicious, belonging to no English town, city or settlement that I know of. Not only is it not named after a town, it is also not named after Lieutenant Spock, as much of this knowledge will devastate the Trekkies amongst us.

On the ground it is a giant camouflaged gazebo which I often walk under between training details, gazing up at it’s cavernous bomb bay, lost in a daydream where I see it loaded up with nuclear nasties, it’s engines revving away, while inside five freshly shaved young men talk numbers to each other in their professional clipped calm as they go off on their mission to the end of the world.

I climb inside it, in the cramped compartment, over to one side, is a metal box with ‘Handle Like Eggs’ stencilled on it. I ponder what manner of foul genie lay stowed in that container, waiting for the coded call to set it free. Up in the cockpit, I squat in one of the two ejector seats (the other three guys down below had to jump out of the bottom). A Red painted handle glares at me, daring me to pull it – a note suggests that the firing pins have been removed, but have they?? Around the windows, a thick nylon curtain lies coiled, ready to pull down when the bomb is dropped, so that you will be preserved from the blinding flash and able to see where you are going. Able to use your eyes to fly back home and see for yourself the black lifeless ruin it has surely become.

The Vulcan was the product of the Avro Company but I have it on authority of the Encyclopaedia Maximus Galactica that ever since the invention of the catapult, all Avro company bombers have been named after an English city or town (we all remember the ‘Lancaster’, even if we’ve never heard of the ‘Manchester’ or the ‘Lincoln’). The strange fact is, my extensive library of maps does not show a place called Vulcan anywhere in Great Britain.

But there must be one somewhere, because there is definitely an bomber parked outside our flying club. There must be a place called Vulcan, probably even a county called Vulcanshire. There must be citizens called Vulcans – or Vulcs for short, and the thing is, the more I ponder this machine, the more I think I am one of them!

For I belong in that place where memories live, where the past refuses to be pronounced dead, where the dead refuse to be buried, a place colonized by those among us who are stricken with the malady called ‘nostalgia’. And it’s not just me….Looking out from the clubhouse, I constantly notice a curious thing. The Vulcan’s final trip to the scrap heap is forever being put back by a Dad’s Army posse of unsung heroes.

655 NEWS 4

These ‘Vulcs’ (they must be Vulcs), are veterans who spend their own free time lovingly attending to the many demands of this venerable machine.

After striking up conversations with the Vulcs I have become privy to many interesting snippets of information. ‘Our’ Vulcan is one of the last ones made – a ‘B2’ (that means bomber mark 2). I can reveal that a mark two is distinguished from a mark one by an extended tail which houses electronic jamming equipment, and small protrusions under each wing which betray, like the glint of a concealed dagger, the evidence of betrayal in high places, for these hide the stubs of pylons where the Skybolt stand-off missile was to have been attached. The Americans thoughtlessly went and cancelled Skybolt after Her Majesty’s government had gone and built these planes to carry it!

But thankfully, the Vulcan was never called upon to fulfil its primary duty, and never dropped anything in anger except a few ineffectual bombs upon Port Stanley airport in the Falklands in 1982.

Yes, unrequited history is built into this aluminium artefact along with all the substance of drama, glory and heritage, and that is why these men scurry so tirelessly about it. For one day the glory must finally be gone, but please let it not be to-day.. I understand that! But then, I am a Vulc,

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WWII VETERANS VISIT XM655

Over the weekend of September 20/21 it was our privilege to receive a visit from former members of Number 5 British Flying Training School and their wives. No 5 BFTS was located at Clewiston Field Florida and gave flying training to RAF personnel far away from English weather and enemy activity. Listening to their many stories was like receiving a potted history of the RAF during the entire period of the Second World War. Many of our visitors were still able to make the precarious climb to view the cockpit of 655 and the determination of some had to be seen to be appreciated. The veterans had been holding a reunion in nearby Stratford on Avon and their visit to 655 was organised by Richard Dick who was himself trained as a pilot at No 5 BFTS. We received a very generous contribution to the MaPS funds and we hope that they enjoyed their visit as much as we appreciated having them.

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XM655 RUN DAY 2004 – DATE CONFIRMED

The next taxi demonstartion of XM655 will take place on Sunday June 20th 2004. We are currently planning the events for the day and we will let you know nearer the time when items have been confirmed. This years run was the best we have ever had, apart from when XM655 flew into Wellesbourne in 1984! 2004 is XM655’s 40th Birthday and will mark the event in some way. It is also XM655’s 20th year at Wellesbourne Mountford (February 11th 1984). Now we are starting to make inroads in the preservation of XM655, we will look at the long term future of this Cold War icon.

655 NEWS 5

Volunteer Profile – Selwyn ‘Slim’ Smith

Selwyn closing the ECM doors located at the rear of XM655. Most of us need a ladder!

Selwyn Smith

After leaving school in 1966, I joined the Air Force as a Craft Apprentice at RAF Halton. Graduating In 1968 as a Junior Technician aircraft fitter (Airframe), I was posted to Scampton in Lincolnshire on Vulcans. My first six years were spent in the hangar working on base checks and repairs. This time saw the handing over of the nuclear deterrent to the navy and the conversion of Scampton’s aircraft from Blue Steel to conventional bombing. In 1974 I was posted to 27 Squadron, also at Scampton. The squadron was re-forming as a maritime reconnaissance unit and the next two years were very interesting as we carried out a variety of detachments to places like the Azores, Chile and the Pacific Islands. In 1976 I was posted to RAF Kinloss in Scotland to the Nimrod Major Servicing Unit, and two years later to RAF Halton as an instructor. After four years at Halton, my next move was to Tornadoes at Cottesmore where I stayed until 1988. My final posting was back to instructor duties at RAF Cosford where I was discharged with the rank of Chief Technician in March 1989. Fortunately the aviation industry in 1989 was short of engineers and I walked straight into a job at British Midland Airways at East Midlands Airport. I studied and passed the Civil Aviation Licence exams for airframe and engines and ‘rose through the ranks’ to become a servicing team leader on Boeing 737 and Airbus aircraft. I now work in the technical support department looking after our Airbus V2500 engines. I met my wife Andrea, who also worked at British Midland, through the Vulcan as we were both shared an interest in the bomber and she was scrounging for parts, in particular a nosewheel. It was Andrea who persuaded me to visit Wellesbourne and we’ve never looked back!

655 NEWS 6

Sunday 15th June 2003 – Back In Business! For those of you who were not able to be with us on Father’s Day this year, or even if you were, here are some fabulous images of 655 taken during the day. We were blessed with perfect weather, which helped to swell the crowds to unprecedented levels. So many turned up that we had to close the airfield to cars in the early afternoon for safety reasons and just allow people in on foot. This is what they saw……..…

We had some ‘guests’ lined up to keep people’s interest going in the afternoon – the first of which was heard rather than seen when an RAF Jaguar screamed overhead. If only we’d had some warning…….. Next came the glorious Sea Vixen in her new colour scheme, which certainly seemed to give her wings! The An 24 “Colt”- biplane dropped in and parked up near to 655. Big she maybe, but was still dwarfed by the delta! The said they’d be with us at 14.58hrs, and at 14.58hrs they were overhead, true to their word, coloured smoke and all. A great sight.

Special thanks once again must go to the members of Fire Brigade who turned out to provide a much needed safety presence. Happily there wasn’t much for them to do, other than enjoy the day with the rest of us. Equally important were the members of The Air Training Corps who gave up their time to help us with car parking, collecting entrance money & crowd control, not to mention their fine burgers!

655 NEWS 7

As mentioned earlier, Sqn Ldr David Thomas, never one to miss an opportunity to display 655, gave us a little taste of what was to come by literally sprinting her across the main runway late in the morning after the early morning test to save dragging her over with the tug.

Once it came time for the real thing, the crew powered up the aircraft and then, much to everyone’s delight, slowly zig-zagged along the crowd line down the main runway before turning, lining up and giving a burst of power to take 655 back to the intersection.

Not satisfied with this, the crew took her back to the end of the runway again and this time REALLY turned on the noise, before slowing 655 safely down and parking back up. Once cooled down (both the crew and the aircraft!), the crowd were able to go and look at close quarters and talk to the ground and air crew.

655 NEWS 8

From One Delta to Another – A Tribute

Bye Bye Concorde A worthy mention – On Wednesday 26th November Concorde GOAF touched down at Filton Airfield, South Gloucestershire for the last time, so ending commercial supersonic flight. Many people have been to Heathrow over the past months to see the last scheduled flights in and out of Heathrow and then finally to the delivery flights to there new homes. Sadly missed, by many I enjoyed the summer evenings out in the garden and hearing the mighty Olympus engines above, as Concorde starts its track into Heathrow.

Will we ever see Rolls Royce Olympus engines in our skies again? Only XH558 holds the key to that happening. Good luck.

26th November 2003 - Filton

MERCHANDISE UPDATE

With the run day and the two special anniversaries next year, we’ve taken the decision to run down our merchandise stocks with a view to getting in some new items for next year. There will no doubt be lots of brand new goodies in the next newsletter in the spring / Summer of 2004.

*************************** Season’s Greetings ************************

May we take this opportunity to wish all our members a very Happy Christmas & a prosperous New Year.

From the committee of 655 Maintenance and Preservation Society

© 2003 XM655 MaPS. All rights reserved. No part of this newsletter may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the authors. All contents supplied by Paul Hartley, Charles Toop, Derek Powell, Nigel Brown & Selwyn Smith. Concorde photos by Damien Burke at www handmadebymachine.com

655 NEWS 9