Together with its stable-mates, the Vickers Valiant and Avro Vulcan, its primary purpose was to carry Britain’s atomic Bomb ‘Blue Danube’ (weighing 10,000 lb – 4½ tons, 4,500 kilos) to Moscow.
The Victor started its career in the 1950s as a strategic bomber, entering Bomber Command service in April 1958. Quite simply, without the Victor tankers, Operation Corporate could not have been launched. The unsung hero : the Handley Page Victor tankerĪs for tankers, there were a couple of dozen Handley Page Victor K2s, with the prime tasking of supporting the Quick Reaction Force of English Electric Lightnings, defending Britain’s Air Defence Identification Zone, principally against Soviet aircraft coming round the North Cape into the North Atlantic. The RAF Museum London’s own Vulcan was already a museum piece at the time. However, a dwindling number of those Vulcans remained: only those which had escaped retirement to museums or the breakers blowtorch. This limited the choice to the Avro Vulcan.
Even from the advance base at Wideawake Airfield on Ascension Island, there was no aircraft which could fly to the Falklands and return unsupported tankers were vital and self-evidently any aircraft going that far had to be able to receive fuel from a tanker. The RAF also showed the psychological exercise of the demonstration of will and capability.īut whilst these tasks were clear, the assets to deliver them were far less so. Roles assigned to the RAF for Operation Corporate were reconnaissance, ground attack, transporting personnel and freight, as well as the aero-medical evacuation of those wounded during the conflict. The following day, the Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, told the House of Commons – on a very rare Saturday sitting – that ‘It is the Government’s objective to see that the islands are freed from occupation and are returned to British administration at the earliest possible moment’. On Friday 2 April 1982, Argentinian military forces invaded and occupied the British Overseas Territory of The Falkland Islands. An Enduring Relationship : A History of Friendship between the Royal Air Force and the Royal Air Force of Oman.Sir Alan Cobham A Life of a Pioneering Aviator.
Never Forgotten: The RAF in the Far East.New exhibition: Falklands Conflict to today.RAF Museum Midlands Development Programme.The First World War in the Air 1914-1918.RAF Stories: The First 100 Years 1918-2018.
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