How the Falklands Was Won: Ashtray At 3 O’Clock
TWENTY-five years ago, Flt Lt Martin Withers took Black Buck 1 on abombing raid of bombing run on Stanley airfield, Falklands Islands.
He was flying a Vulcan, a less than state-of-the-art machine.
As the Telegraph notes:
To fly a Vulcan to Stanley required the help of all of the 14 Victor refuelling tankers that the RAF possessed.
The V-bomber was intended only for low-level attacks carrying nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union.
To adapt the Vulcan to air-to-air refuelling and to conventional bombing - required finding various bits and pieces that had not been used for decades.
Some were reclaimed from museums.
“One part they needed for the bomb-aiming equipment was being used as an ashtray in the engineers’ mess at Waddington,” said Mr Withers, who is now a pilot for Zoom, a new no-frills airline flying across the Atlantic from Gatwick.
“Elements of the preparation for those flights were Heath Robinson in character.”
An ashtray? Do Health and Safety know?
Posted: 1st, May 2007 | In: Twitterings Comments (3) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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May 2nd, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Ha, ha! Don’t tell me you’re bleeding from that Maradona’s hand-goal? Blame the referee and the linesmen, not the poor ol’ chap who came out from the deepest pits of our low class society.
Craftmanship is, to the best of my knowledge, related to dexterity, hability. Technology, on the other hand, is rather related to workmanship. Our pilots sailed their flying machines like stormy petrels.
By the way, yesterday, one of our Mirage M3’s crashed and her 28 year-old pilot was killed.
It appears that you’re kind of aggressive, but you shouldn’t, unless you want me to refresh your memory. England not always won, you know?
Do you remember what happened to the mammoth English fleet that on 18th March, 1915, White Ensigns hugely billowing, captains princely having tea with sponge cake on their flying bridges, began an assault upon the Dardanelles? Superbia is not a good counsellor. There’s no small enemy.
It’s good that you managed to correct your bomber’s name. ‘Vulvan’ was kind of funny, y’know? A slip like this, picked by an unknown argie-bargie is even worse…isn’t it?
Your turn…
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Is not the technology part of craftsmanship? And - agreed - war with Argentina is a nonsense. Unless, we go into battle on something really worthwhile - like cheating footballers….
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Oh, c’mon, you say Flt Lt Withers was flying a ‘Vulvan’ . Quite a feminine bomber so to speak…I can understand Englishness and British pride and valour, but please don’t stand stiff at the heroes’ podium only because you barely won a few lousy land battles against a handful of untrained and half-starved teenagers armed with no better guns than
catapults and whose morals were high by ‘courage out of fear’ as the great Lord Byron said. Our navy was in shambles before going out to sea and the General Belgrano ( launched March 1938, ex USS Phoenix, heavily damaged at Pearl Harbour) was simply a sitting duck. We had just a small number of vintage fighter and fighter-bomber jets albeit flown by champion pilots who managed to corner the English until their numbers were reduced by superior technology, not superior craftmanship. Anyways, I am very sorry that our traditional friendship and collaboration had to be put to test upon the whims of two selfish government characters. Last but not least, our fight with each other was also a show of gentlemanship. Probably the last of the XXth century and centuries to come. Bless you. Argie aka Salvador