Victors and Canberra (Marham)

[Dinga69]

John

If you are interested - I'll nip across the aircrew history room next week and see if I can find some photo's from Akrotiri, but I'm not sure what's there. As for the AP (Air Publication), my mate who's on hol at the mo will know the whereabouts of it if I can't find it tonight on night shift. I definitely recall the Canberras dropping the banners on the bondu after being shot at in Akrotiri, as Firebird mentioned, from my times on APC with 43 Sqn(Phantoms and Tornado F3). We still have the equipment dotted around the squadron, but we're in a bit of upheaval at the mo as our hangar is having the roof replaced. I don't know what the Rushton system was used for as it's a bit big for the Hawks methinks I do remember seeing one at RAE Llanbeddr moons ago!!

[Firebird]

John, from the sound of things it may be that both things are true.
A 'Toom guy and a Frightening guy remember the banner Cranberries dragging them off the ground from the centre line(?). My mind maybe playing tricks about the ones we played with each year in Cyprus having no target pods, I think that they had tanks, instead, for the transit to and from the UK.

I don't know the Sqn or type in that depth but like John I have found pics of them with and w/o target pods. My guess would be that the pods were a late mod to carry the banner rather than having that capability from scratch.

I don't know if this helps of hinders things. At the end of the day I am just glad to have a quality AI model to go in my sim.

[Dinga69]

IF the system used is the same as we used on the Hawk, the banner is laid on the left hand side of the runway, with the rope, strop and cables laid out doubled up, looking like a compressed giant 's' shape from above, with the strop at the banner end and the cable attached to the aircraft on the port side - The aircraft being on the centreline. The aircraft is then given the thumbs up to power up, and shoot off down the runway, snatching at the point the rope is doubled up at. The spreader bar on the banner has wheels, which roll along the ground until the target is airborne - and rights itself by means of the counterweight in the spreader bar! Like I said, if you are interested, I'll try find more documentary and photographic stuff if it's available!! A few years ago FRA(Now Cobham) took this role from us as the Falcon can carry two targets which are released from underwing pods.

[John Young]

Aha, so the laid-out banner (snatch method) is actually attached to the tug as it starts the take-off roll and doesn't physically have to be caught in some way. I had visions of some sort of Fulton Recovery System as on the C-130 some years back, or some kind of arresting hook on the tug!

It sounds quite hazardous, if not for the Canberra but for any aircraft in the vicinity that might run into the cable as it climbed out with the departing tug. The cable presumably had to be at it's safe operating length as there was no winch to vary it. With a banner even half a mile back, the cable must be a serious hazzard even for an informed "attacking" pilot who might pass between it and the tug, never mind a stray light aircraft pilot with no knowledge of it's presence as the tug and banner depart the airfield and transit to the range. The more you think about the potential safety implications the more interesting the subject becomes. I'd love to know more, but without putting anyone to any undue effort.

John

[Dinga69]

Speaking only of Hawk ops, the target is all connected up to the aircraft prior to the aircraft throttling up for take off. The whole procedure on the ground is quite dangerous too!! The procedure for laying out the target is:-
1. The vehicle carrying rolled up banners enters the active and two guys(guy 1+2) carry one banner, unroll it on the left of the runway and unravel the ropes and shackle

2. Nearer the centreline, the first bit of cable is unreeled off a drum on the vehicle guy 1 sits on the back of the vehicle with a lump of wood acting as a drum brake as the vehicle drives down the runway while guy 2 stands on the cable! As the reel unwinds, after 50ft of steel cable, the rope unwinds(can't remember length) followed by the strop. As the strop falls off the wagon it is picked up and secured and the vehicle then turns and drives toward the target. When this is reached, guy 1 connects the strop to the banner as guy 2 marshalls the aircraft onto the centreline, stops him, then hooks the steel cable to the banner release mechanism on the aft side of the rear fuselage. Once all this is done and the runway vacated - the aircraft can then launch!

As you can tell it's quite an archaic system and the potential for accidents quite high.

[John Young]

That does sound quite scary.

John

[Stewart Pearson]

That does sound quite scary.

John

Not really John. Provided the ground crew touch their toes at the time of launch, it makes it very easy for them to kiss their a*se goodbye.

[John Young]

The Canberra's are all done for FS9 and FSX. This is the flightline with the FSX-coded aircraft (the German B2 is of course for Martin and my fellow scenery designer, Manfred, over at ACG):



The only disappointment was that although I could get the target banners to display behind the TT18's at altitude in FSX, the feature had a nasty effect on the behaviour of the aircraft turning circle on the ground. The banners didn't show at ground level, as they shouldn't according to the model, but FSX, unlike FS9, must assume that the 900ft length of the tow rope is part of the aircraft length. Consequently the turning circle became huge and lining the aircraft up on the runway became very difficult. Just in case it might have helped, I tried changing the parking radius with Martin's tool, but that is not possible in FSX (FSX uses wing span instead). I'll just have to leave the taget banners on the FS9 models only. They have no effect on the ground handling and work fine.

I'd like to offer a B-57 variant for users across the pond from me, but I've scoured the net but I can't find any decent plans. The subject is in a separate "Warpaint" book from the one I have for the other Canberras and the book is out of print. Could anyone help me with some plans please? Some idea of a popular paint scheme would also help - I can leave the re-painters to do some others perhaps.

Next job is to do some retro changes to my RAF Marham scenery so that I can include this and a traffic file as a home for the Victor K2s and Canberra PR9s.

John

[jaguar1]

These models look simply awesome John. I just wish I had half the skills that you have.

Sorry I can't help with any B-57 plans but I hope someone can. It would be great to see a NASA WB-57 in the FS skies. Good luck with this project.

John.

[gsnde]

What an beautiful flight line! Thank you very much for the orange beauty, John. GAF flew three of them from 1966 until 1993. I am looking forward to see them fly again.

[MIKE JG]

Very cool!

[Bora]

Looking absolutely fantastic !!

Really looking forward to use both the Victor and Canberra in my 1989/1990 retro setup... Although I will have to move the Canberra's to Wyton and add some 27 Sq and 617 Sq Tornado's to Marham...

[Firebird]

Stunning, just stunning.

[John Young]

My thanks to "hobby" who is sending me some plans for the B-57. I'm just making a few retro changes to an alternative RAF Marham and setting up the Victor's and Canberra's there. I've picked 1993 to give the best of all worlds. It was the last year of the Victors, the Canberras had just arrived and the HAS's had been completed with the Tornado GR1s in place. I'll do the B-57 package after that.

John

[mikewmac]

My thanks to "hobby" who is sending me some plans for the B-57. I'm just making a few retro changes to an alternative RAF Marham and setting up the Victor's and Canberra's there. I've picked 1993 to give the best of all worlds. It was the last year of the Victors, the Canberras had just arrived and the HAS's had been completed with the Tornado GR1s in place. I'll do the B-57 package after that.

John

John,

My old Vermont Air National Guard squadron flew EB-57's for a period of time back in the 70's and early 80's. I'll see if I can dig up a few photos from my archives if you would like.

Mike M

[John Young]

Yes absolutely Mike, thank you. If I can make the model have some meaning to people who have an association with it so much the better. I'll do the NASA one too as it was specifically mentioned.

John

[hobby]

Just a note on speeds:

Google says(LOL);

The Victor moves at 545kts at 36000ft, 545kts is I expect actually the TAS in that example. Very rough and ready calculation for IAS at that height would be: knock off the last two 00s from the height = 360. Divide 360 by 2 = 180. Subtract 180 from TAS = 545-180 = Approx IAS at 36000ft = 365kts giving an approx TAS of 545 kts.

So the speed to enter in the AI FDE would be 365kts and also in the Ttools 'Aircraft' data.

With the Canberra; The maximum airspeed limit with wingtip tanks is limited to 365kts M0.79 below 25000ft rising to M0.80 abve 25000ft.

Without tip tanks the max airspeed limit is 450kts M0.75 below 15000ft, M0.79 at 15000ft to 20000ft.

Bomb doors open speed limit is 350kts below 40000ft.

[John Young]

Thank you Hobby for the data. In fact I am not far off the speed you suggest for the Canberra, but for the Victor, I decided to limit it to 250 knots to give users a chance to chase and catch up with the deployed hoses for mock air to air refuelling out to the North Sea waypoint. The other consideration was what speed to use for the AI scenario. Because these are retro aircraft, I don't really want to send them to modern day airfields. There are very few retro airfield sceneries available and my preferred course of action is to have the aircraft depart and fly an IFR circuit of the parent airfield. They disappear from view for about 20 minutes at the speeds I have chosen. They also depart and approach the runway with the right sort of attitude which is equally as important. I know weight and CofG also plays a part here amongst other factors, but users can always set up something different if they prefer.

I'm only using one aircraft.cfg and .air file for all marks of each aircraft. Fine tuning is not really needed particularly as the AI engine uses far less parameters than the flyable one. I don't think users would thank me for 5 separate aircraft folders, plus another 3 perhaps for the Victor just to change the airspeed by a few knots.

Regressing Marham is going well. FS9 is nearly done - just updating some period vehicles.

John

[Christopher Low]

I may well be using one Victor as an AI plane, as if a restoration programme similar to that for XH558 had been undertaken. There are also three static Victors that I want to add (RAF Marham, Elvington, and Bruntingthorpe).

[John Young]

The regression of my RAF Marham scenery to 1993 is all done for FS9 and FSX and the AI is present:







My only real problem are the Tornados for the HAS sites. The modern day version uses the MAIW grey-painted GR4 package:



In 1993, 27 and 617 Sqns had just moved in with their camouflaged GR1s. I could possibly do a repaint of the GR4 but it wouldn't be right. PAI (flightsimer.com) have a GR1 but it needs the PAI installer to install it and that doesn't work on my system. I know why and it's too complex to resolve for less confident users with the same problem. I think therefore that I might have a go at an AI GR1 - it would certainly be a good learning experience. To avoid delaying the release of the packages, I think I might offer the scenery and Victor/Canberra AI with an option to use the GR4 for now. I'll do that on a personal basis for anyone who would like Retro Marham early. The packages will contain all the other Victor and Canberra variants as well.

I want to do the Martin B-57 Canberra conversion after that, which shouldn't take long. Then I'll try my hand at the GR1. That will give personal users a chance to give me any feedback before uploading the Marham packages, hopefully with the GR1, to the popular sites.

Don't ask for the packages just for the moment, I just need to put the documentation together first. I'll post when it's ready.

Does that sound reasonable please?

John