Except the sound of two pairs taking off on a simulated 4 minute warning scramble. Something I saw several times at Biggin Hill in the late 1950’s, early 60’s. Unforgettable.
Have seen Vulcans fly on a number of occasions at air show - including when they were still being shown by the RAF itself. Quite possibly the loudest noise I’ve ever heard - combined with that oh-so-eerie howl; they always gave the impression of tearing the air apart.
But I’m not sure the exact words used but when the Vulcan requested permission to land in New York the tower said “where are you?” he replied “I’m just coming in on the flight path” and they didn’t even know he was there!
I was in the RAF in the mid 70s and this was an open secret among us! Even at that time Vulcans were winning the ECM trophies at Red Flag... oh, the story about a Vulcan shielding 2 Bucaneers...? Perfectly true!
The reason the Vulcan stayed down at 56,000ft, instead of it's max altitude of around 63,000ft, was because the USSR didn't have anything that could get above 56,000. Incidentally, when their role of high level nuclear bomber was phased out, they switched to low level conventional bombers. During another joint exercise in Nevada, called Red Flag, which is still held most years, the USAF successfully intercepted a Vulcan sneaking across the desert at 100ft, what they didn't see were two Blackburn Buccaneers sat underneath it at around 30 ft.
To be fair, the excercises were absolutely successful from both a US and UK point of view. The US knew the RAF were among the best and it served them well to find out where the holes were in their defence systems. Similarly, the RAF confirmed their capability against a major power. A good exercise for everyone I would say.
Yeah, that's why they were totally prepared the second time around. 🫢 I just can't get around the American arrogance that they think they are the best. They have been clearly shown numerous times that they are simply not. Denial is not the way to improve. Big numbers. Big budget. Massive denial.
@Varksterable Precisely the point. The only way to learn is to find your mistakes: If at first you don't succeed, try and try again. As for keeping it under wraps, that was to the benefit of all of NATO, not just the US.
Imagine if the Soviets were aware of how easy it was to penetrate U.S airspace, and the Brits did it with no other planes in the sky clogging the radar, and they were aware we were coming! The vulcans could have flown higher, but were restricted to the known max altitude of Soviet bombers.
I'm British. We're a small nation and as such it's easy to underestimate our technical knowledge and our capabilities especially successful covert ops. The US has been our strongest ally and friend for years and it never ceases to amaze me how the average American has no idea just how much the UK and USA military work together in peacetime from joint training military exercises etc ranging from small to massive, through to "sneaky beaky" "what if" assimilations.
@@CobraChicken101 Well France is more than twice the size of Britain ,which would rattle about in many US states . by size and population we are smaller than any of the other old European powers ,and compared to the lands once under British rule ......miniscule.
There's a great Mark Felton video, about the time an English Electric Lightening not only intercepted a U2, but actually came down from above it at over 88,000 feet. The same aircraft managed to overhaul a Concorde, flying at Mach 2 at 60,000 feet, from behind - something no other allied fighter (even Eagles or Toms or Starfighters) was able to do, because none could fly that high and fast for more than a very short period whereas a Concorde could cruise for hours.
@Rltchiel and the grounded all Commercial flights both times , if the RUSSIANS came over they would have commercial planes cluttering up radar screens along with their own Fighters & Rusky Bombers..
Not only that they knew we were coming, but on the second run, one of the Vulcans actually used the actual same route and git through. Pearl Harbor, they carried out an exercise and several 'enemy' aircraft got through, 'bombed' the targets and escaped before they realised. Then the troops went in to Honolulu etc; and bragged about what they had done. Trouble was the Japanese intelligence officers had good hearing! 1941 - guess what? You honestly will not believe it! The IJN actually flew across Oahu down the very same valleys the Yanks had used in their exercise. Oh dear!
Tankers refuelling tankers refuelling tankers to get *one* bomber all the way to the Falklands, an absolutely bonkers plan that quite possibly only the British would have considered, let alone actually green-lit.
@@kumasenlac5504 I don't think it was successful as far as seriously damaging the runways went, but the psychological effects were very useful - suddenly Argentina realised that Britain could bomb Buenos Aries, or any strategic target in the country, so they had to make sure they had enough defensive forces staying at home, just in case, meaning less reinforcements for the actual war.
@@Skraeling1000 considering that the Argentine brass didn't think that we could do anything like that (they didn't think we'd retaliate either) made it a success. The hit on the runway shut it down, but as you say the psychological effect was huge.
You mentioned the Norad command and about a cup of tea. But can you imagine the look on the face of the air traffic controller in New York when he got the call from an RAF vulcan heavy bomber requesting landing permission during the second test. Taking the piss or what😂
2 years ago the British and America did a war game together. Exercises RATTLESNAKE. It was a 5 day exercise, with 100 British marines Vs 1500 American soldiers…… The British smashed the Americans in just 3 days! The American side had to surrender and ask to restart the war game. 🤫😂
But then again its no surprise. My dad was a bootneck and during exersizes it was confirmed that the Yanks were useless, easily fooled and VERY prone to friendly fire.
The British defeated the USA in a day and half before the USA asked to reset the exercise The reset was done and day half later the British Defeated the USA again .The exercise was deemed a success as the British were trying out new tactics
The English Electric Lightning Intercepter of the same era could reach the tip of space, breaking the sound barrier on it's flight straight up tp 80,000ft, where the blue edge of the atmosphere can be viewed. If you fancy a trip up there, there is a private one available in South Africa.
You're absolutely correct Harry... We first saw the Vulcan Bomber many years ago flying at an Airshow at RAF Finningley... At one point in it's display routine... It made a low pass over the crowd with it's bomb bay doors open... Before closing them and throttling up to full power... The noise it made was incredible... It's easily the noisiest aircraft I've ever heard in my entire life... And even the sound on this footage simply doesn't do it justice... The thunderous noise it made was resonating through my entire body... It's certainly a sound that once heard... You never forget my friend. 👍
I use to live a couple of miles as the crow flies from RAF Waddington in the seventies and had vulcans flying overhead often but as loud as they were you should've heard when they would test the engines at full throttle back at base ...far louder than one flying overhead
There are plenty good vids on youtube on the Vulcan. I saw (and felt the Vulcan. The roar would shake your guts!) many times at our local airshow over the years. Check out how fast they were on takeoff compared to a B-52, and you have to be actually "there" to properly hear the legendary "Vulcan howl", its a terrifying noise that seems to come straight from hell.
As a kid in the 60's, I remember Vulcan at air shows. Come in low n slow over the field, open & close bomb bay doors like a wave to the crowd, followed by a full power climb out. The noise was tremendous, not just heard but felt.
The Vulcan is just a *tad* bit of a spotlight-hog compared to its siblings though, the Valiant and Victor, which were both, themselves, formidable, even if the Vulcan does deserve to always win "best of show."
My father was at an air show when one of the first Vulcans (possibly the prototype) was looped. There was a video of it on here a couple of years ago but it seems to have disappeared.
When I was a child, my parents lived near one of the Vulcan bases, and my dad took me to see the Vulcans taking off. When they did a scramble, it was awesome. And always was a flight of four aircraft The attacks described in the video was straight out of the Vulcan's playbook. They would attack in the early days with free-fall nukes from high level, and later with stand off missiles from low level. The Vulcans could fly well above 60,000 feet, and at that level, it took a while for an interceptor to reach it. Even if an interceptor made it, at that height, the massive wing area of the Vulcan enabled it to outmanoeuvre any Soviet interceptor of the time. But the defensive Ace in the hole was the jamming system. The RAF had been developing electronic radar jamming devices since early in WW2, and the systems at the end of the war were very effective. A simple wall of disruption is easily beaten, because all the attacker has to do is head towards the centre of disruption to find the jamming aircraft. But at the end of the war the RAF scientists were working on a system which bent the beam of a radar to make the reflected signal show the target many miles from its actual position. This was available in the 1950s. So the flight of four aircraft would head towards the target city, and three of the aircraft would do the jamming, whilst one released its bombs. Once a nuke has gone off, the EMP renders radio signals in the area useless for a significant period, even if the device is hardened to resist the instantaneous EMP. So it was easy for the four aircraft to slip away towards the next target, where one of the jammers became the next bomber and the first bomber became one of the the jammers. Rinse and repeat until the aircraft had no bombs left. The mission of the Vulcans was taken over by Polaris missiles, but it was another 15 years before the RAF got round to getting rid of the Vulcans. By the way, never trust the British military - they're sneaky 🤣
One of the things that you might have missed about this. They grounded every civilian plane, so anything in the air during this exercise was an "enemy" plane and they still couldn't stop the Vulcans
One thing to bare in mind: When the Vulcan was developed we were completely broke after WWII [ a bill we didn't finish paying until 2006 or so ] Throwing money at defense DOES NOT guarantee success.
Fun fact. If you go back and listen to the Vulcan taxiing, and close your eyes, the image that might spring to mind could be - Thunderbird 2! They used the engine noise for it in the series!
These Mark Felton videos are really informative without being overly technical or boring. He does one on the Lightning interceptor plane pitting itself against the U2 spy plane (and Concorde airliner), but the Vulcan is something else - a bomber that seemed to be as nimble as a fighter.
There is a reason the US has kept Britain such a close ally, and it’s not just for a token gesture. We still produce some of the best tech, best servicemen and woman, and tactics in the world and continue to punch well above our weight.
You never forget the sound of a Vulcan overhead. The sound reverberates throughout your body and there's a pressure in your chest, I can still feel it just thinking about it. Mark Felton's vids are always good.
Also, don't forget that unlike in a real strike, the US Air Force knew the British were coming, knew that the only planes in the sky would be "enemy" aircraft, and knew their routes from the first time. I think that makes it 1000 times worse. It's equivalent to beating someone at a 100 metre sprint despite giving them a 90 metre head start.
I was told this by a U2 Pilot at Bein Hoa in Vietnam in 1965. He told that the Brits flew a flight of Vulcans over the Pentagon at ground level. The Vulcan informed the Pentagon that had been Nuked. The Pentagon replied Bull shit they would have shown up on the Radar. The Vulcans flew back over the Pentagon & switch off the Instrument for 30 seconds, then off again. The Pentagon Radar lit up like a Christmas Tree, then went quite again. Someone outside raced into the Pentagon & said, "Did you see the planes flying low over their Building."
If either of you guys come to the UK and travel, you'll see picturesque villages, people gossiping on street corners, you'll experience a Friday/Saturday night out on the town too and the wonders of human evolution. You may wonder how in this country does some of the greatest inventions, pieces of literature, music, military might etc etc come from here ...well we don't like to shout about the things we do, we just "keep calm and carry on", or assume the person next to us might be the clever one.
Just like the Harrier jump jet & later Concord, the Usa had nothing like our Vulcan bomber. For most of history, the UK has been at the forefront of design & technology globally, not America. 🇬🇧🇺🇸
As some others have mentioned in1982 during the Falklans War, the Vulcan bombers conducted what was until very recently the longest bombing raid in history. They flew from Ascension Island in the Atlantic to Port Stanley on the Falklands. Operation Black Buck. A logistical nightmare. Well worth watching the short documentary video "Operations Black Buck Falklands' Most Daring Raid" (there is an animated video too but not as good)
The Vulcan was bomber that thought it was a fighter pity they had to ground the only flying Vulcan in the world in 2015 thanks to Rolls Royce with drawing it technical support thus grounding it was a great at airshow it was the star
@@monza1002000 There was nothing wrong with engines or electronics It was the Vulcan was coming to the end of the planes flying hours set out by the CAA and needed a complete overhaul on the air frame to get a new air worthiness certificate to keep the Vulcan flying The Vulcan to sky charity had raised the money in 2014 to get the repairs done and keep it in the air A few months before the Vulcan was due to go in for it repairs Rolls Royce pulled it technical support saying it was to expensive to repair the bomber even though the trust had raied the money to get it repaired thus grounding as The Vulcan to Sky Trust (VTST) is civilian trust The Vulcan to Sky Trust has always said they will get the Vulcan fly again at the moment
On another one of these joint exercises there was a fighter vs fighter component . I’m not sure what the US was flying but the British pilots were in their Harriers and the RAF pilots enjoyed considerable shootdown advantage it was something like 10 or 11 to one . One of the American pilots was quoted as saying something like “well how the hell am I supposed to hit something doing 600 mile an hour at weed top which suddenly stops and starts flying backwards !” No wonder the US Marines loved their Harriers 😍😍
I’m an ex British serviceman. And there is certainly a huge level of trust between the US and the UK ….but imagine what we could have done to the USSR if things had gone that way ….
Great to see you guys enjoy this video. It's very insightful and well presented by Mark Felton (he does great videos). I was in the USA (from the UK just starting a 2-week holiday with my wife) when 9/11 happened and remember the flights being grounded. I was in San Francisco city centre, and went to pick up a hire car that morning and the queue was out of the door with people trying to get home back across the US. At that point they were in the process of mobilising the National Guard and closing the Golden Gate and other bridges, as a couple of unaccounted for aircraft from New York were scheduled and heading towards San Francisso. We were due to check out of our hotel that morning, and head down the coast which we did quickly throwing our bags into the hire car and heading out of town, making sure we were safe.
I think as well us Brits had unique experience of using real time air defences, as you saw when you reacted to the battle of Britain video, the USA mainland had never been attacked by an opposing air force in anger, so all your knowledge was theory, I think so much more is learnt when an actual attack happens in real time, and having it happen on home soil is different to being attacked during a conflict overseas, I think it's quite apt that the Vulcan was designed by the same guy who designed the famous Lancaster bomber used in WWII, although in the early days of radar when Britain was developing it's own system, the USA was one of the few nations worldwide who we shared all the information we knew about Radar with.
I recall reading somewhere that, from a reputable source, the only western aircraft that really frightened the Soviets in the late '50s and early 60s was the Vulcan - because they knew some would definitely get through.
The Vulcan became vulnerable to SAM's after Gary Powers was shot down in a U2 at over 70000 feet. The Vulcans were brought down to low level - 250 feet, and the Soviets realised they had suddenly no answer to an aircraft hiding in valleys as it brought sunshine to you. If the Cold War had gone hot, the Vulcans would have flown even lower as in less than 100 feet, popping up to deliver the Sunshine, then headed east. Thanks to Mountbatten the delivery was given to the RN
One invisible part in the documentary is that great "British fighting spirit". Might explain why we've not been invaded by a foreign army since 1066 🇬🇧✌️🇬🇧
And the stiff upper lip! During WWII Germany bombed us purely to demoralise us, then Hitler got angry that we just carried on with our daily lives like nothing happened.
Avro Vulcan was the bomber that thought she was a fighter. All 3 of the V bombers were way ahead of their time but Vulcan was special. Vulcan was the one designed and built to get into places that the other 2 wouldn't get anywhere near. Not only did it fly high and fast, the manueverability it had at those altitudes made intercepting them and staying with them even harder. And the ECM's it carried were beyond what US military thought was even possible in a unit small enough and light enough to be carried in an aircraft. In it's day the ECM technologies on those aircraft were like the stealth tech in F-22. Not sure if you guys have covered any of them but I'd love to see you guys react to some of Drachinifel. His telling of the Battle of Samar and Taffy 3 or the plight of the Russian second Pacific Squadron(that ones a 2 parter) are especially good 😊
There was a third exercise that the video doesn’t mention, Sky Shield 3. The RAF were … not invited, as it would be, for the Americans, “unfair competition” (genuine words from a declassified document).
There’s another fascinating video on the net about the nuclear bomb. The majority of Americans have been taught and always believed that they invented the nuclear bomb whereas it was actually British scientists in England and British scientists working in the USA who created it. It’s a good video to react to. The US government taught Americans that they had invented it to instil national pride and patriotism in the World War Two period into Americans.
If you think about this in reverse, this what a test of how effective it would be to attack the USSR, knowing what works best so that the highly successful Vulcan bomber could have been assigned to the top priority targets. Love your reaction to the Vulcans roar, a sound once heard never fogotten, i was lucky enough to see and hear the Vulcan and it a "Fuck Yea" moment.
My father worked on the Vulcan program for Avro back in the late 50s and early 60s and told me of this back when they were being retired just after the Falklands War. He heard the story on the QT from some RAF ground crew he worked with just after Skyshield One. The Vulcan was as maneuverable as a fighter, and the test Pilot (Roly Faulks) actually proved it by rolling one of the prototypes at the Farnborough Airshow! Footage is on RU-vid and there is also a clip where you see the difference between the design thinking of the Britsh and the American designers of the B52 and Vulcan taking off at RIAT. We had the Soviets minutes away so the Vulcan was designed to scramble and could be airborne from cold in under four minutes. As the last flying Vulcan was only grounded a few years ago and there is loads of airshow footage of XH558 displayed with the Red Arrows on RU-vid, and man do I miss seeing and hearing those four Olympus engines howling at full chat!
Good video guys! i think around 60,000ft is when a plane enters or is just below the earth's atmoshphere (stratosphere)....but it is pretty much Space at that point.
I watched a Vulcan taking off from RAF Finningley in South Yorkshire UK in the early 60s, my dad took me there & the road ran about 200yds from the runway. What a sight & what a noise from those fantastic engines, never forget it.
Built in the early to mid-50, retired early 80s. Just realised that the Vulcans still got through without been able to hide among hundreds of private and commercial flights.
Now imagine if we had come unannounced, also with most large forces they were so sure of themselves they just believed they had won before it even started !! Twice?
If we were coming in anger and unannounced, the Vulcans would have been at 70k ft too, if they couldn't find us at 56k ft with all commercial aircraft grounded, what chance would they have had in a real attack where we would probably have sent all 50 Vulcans not just 8.
I am sorry that you never had the chance to see the Vulcan, it was a fantastic aircraft. I remember standing at the end of a runway when a Vulcan took off towards and over my head, the sound pressure wave from the engines shook the ground with a massive thunder. The Vulcan had to be experienced to believe it.
Last time I saw one, it was rehearsing for its last Farnborough display. Easily noticeable as I drove up the M3. So I had to stop at the services, get on the Nokia to a chap I worked with, so he could at least hear the ship flaying a few miles away. At the more shallow angle angle of view, the pattern she flew looked more dramatic than from the Farnborough runway. Floating up and down like a feather in a storm.
I love the UK plane landed in New York, that must have taken some covering up, that Brit totaly TAKING THE PISS. Oh, and its UK, UK,UK the Valcan was BRITTISH, so shouting America is a bit redundet.
You need to hear a video of the famous Vulcan howl. It would give you chills. These bombers were used during the Falklands war in 1982, making the longest bombing raids to that date, through a complicated system of multi-mid-air refuels. I was an air show about that time here in the UK & got to witness a Vulcan close at take off. It was enormous, & the vibrations set off every car alarm in the parking lot. By that date many of the systems on the aircraft were out of date, so they were retired. But the Soviets didn't have the Vulcan!! There is no way that the UK would have let the information out, it would have been in no-one's interest to do so.
The Swedes have done something similar which resulted in the US Navy borrowing one of their Gottlieb Diesel-Electric subs. As one of those subs sneaked inside a carrier group and "sank" the USS Ronald Reagan in a war game before successfully escaping the area.
To be accurate the US government and military were primarily concerned about preventing the US public knowing about this. It is extremely likely that the Russians knew all about the Vulcan:s success. I'm not even sure that the British would have tried particularly hard to stop the Russians knowing. The message being if we can do this to the Americans we can do it to you. I also doubt that the Americans would have tried particularly hard to prevent the Russians knowing, but for a more pragmatic reason, with 200,000 personnel involved it is unlikely that the Russians wouldn't have heard it from somebody within the organisation with loose lips, or who had been compromised about the Vulcan's success. The important thing was to keep the information from the American people, who would have been upset by had they known.
A Vulcan bomber flew from Britain to the Falkland Islands and dropped bombs on the airfield. In one hit. Have you boys got the ingenious tenacity of us Brits yet? 😂 sorry I missed out belligerence.
I think it really does show how insular Americans are, the UK was where the US Australia NZ Canada came from and yes all now countries in their own right but the UK has a special relationship with all of these countries and maybe we don't have the might of the US but a lot of your tech came from the UK and was given freely. I'm sure the UK would come to the aid of any of these countries (as they have in the past) in a heartbeat because they are our family.
love your comments, yeah we a small counrty but still pack a punch, that aside, it was nice to recgnise, we are ally's. where you go we go, where we go you go. we have the common language, and i think the friendship has never been greater through the inetrnet, you tube, what ever platform, i bet your biggest views are from the UK, in the same token, we love watching US stuff, we are cousin's at heart, and learning more, and getting closer your government needs sorting, thats a story for a different day and so does ours lol, so again we are both the same
You had a massive defence budget then, the problem is so much is wasted on corrupt politicians and greedy arms supplier's, it's getting the same here, I guess the main reason it was classified for so long was it would be hard to explain where all the billions went to be so ineffective, especially as this was a planned attack with empty skies
On 7 January 1971 an Avro Vulcan crashed in the a field close to a school in the village i live in. luckly The Co-Pilot, AEO, Navigator Radar, Navigator Plotter all managed to bail a little while before the Crash and the pilot found the safest place to crash the plane before he bailed out.
Bear in mind that all civilian aircraft were grounded at the time of both exercises and the defenders knew that an attack was coming. Imagine how much more difficult it would be to defend the airspace against an unexpected attack with civilian aircraft complicating matters.
I used to go to speedway at Mildenhall which had a US base down the road mainly transport planes like the Hercules were based there, but every so often you would get one of the Blackbird spy planes landing there and being so close to the Stadium flying really low, there is a good James May documentary where he is given a passenger ride on one of these flights which actually fly as close to space as is possible.
Fun fact. Uk at this time had 50 of these planes on standby 24/7. Sadly the last flying one is grounded. I saw this jet fly and last mission in Falklands is amazing
These types of war games are very important. This is because different countries think differently and have different tactics, which means it forces your military to be adaptable and think outside of the box. In the case of the Sky Shield exercises the main problem with the USAF defences tactics is that they didn’t change them between exercise 1 & 2 with the exception of putting up more planes, which didn’t work. I’m sure after these exercises there were a lot of soul searching and redefining of US defence tactics.
