Today we had an attendance of 21 with 5 apologies .
Paul Young writes:-
Our speaker this week was John Airey and his subject was “The V Force”. This refers to Britains nuclear deterrent which consisted of a nuclear weapon carried on an aircraft.
The Vickers Valiant, Avro Vulcan and the Handley Page Victor bombers were used for this task hence the term “V Force”.
John, who is a Probus members in Torquay, gave an extremely detailed, well illustrated and interesting talk. Equally interesting and enjoyable was the vote of thanks from Geoff Coop who was a Navigator on the V Force! Hopefully, Geoff can be persuaded to give a presentation about his personal experiences at some time in the future.
Tony Taft continues:-
John talked about about the need to develop an aircraft with the ability to deliver a nuclear bomb, the aircraft would need to have the power to fly at a great height and the capacity to carry such a large bomb in its bomb bay and this led to the development of the V bombers, the Handley Page Victor, the Vickers Valiant, and the Avro Vulcan, photos below this review.
John’s presentation consisted of photographs and drawings of the various aircraft and a detailed description of the adjustments to the prototypes to meet the exacting needs to achieve this goal.
To get an aircraft to (I think he said )thirty thousand feet you need a powerful engine and a body frame strong enough to meet these demands and the Avro Vulcan met all these demands.
The talk was very informative and impossible to to give an exact report in this brief review but it was well received by all of the members especially those who have a history of flying these aircraft.
It is such a pity that the Vulcan is no longer air worthy I will miss the roar and power of those engines no other aircraft sounded quite like that it will be missed at all of the air shows.
Paignton Probus Club 