Buccaneers 50th birthday your memories

50 yrs today the first buccaneer flight from Brough in Yorkshire Derek Whitehead/ Bernard Watson in XK486. NA 39 the banana boys :salut:

 

Kinell Scouse I know you joined as a junior, but even that was before your time

 

i bet our heavenly father Chief Radley and God Towel and Jesus Brooker serviced her? :angel4: :thumright:

 

Ah Scouse names from the past,
Remember Willy Watson and Ivor Pescalinni. Both still alive and kicking and still drawing their navy pensions.
Buccaneers, real aircraft flown from real carriers by real arrogant aircrew.

 

As a non WAFU I was always very impressed with those aircraft and the pilots and navigators in them.

My favourite memory of them was just after the Falklands and we (Penelope) were on our way back home and off Gibraltar. Four of them came out to play with us and have some fun. I was on the bridge wing when two of them flew about level with the focsle and the pilot was waving to us on the bridge wing. Incredible stuff and I was totally awestruck that afternoon. :thumright:

Brilliant aircraft flown by brilliant and cocky buggers.

 

Yes Fleet Air Arm pilots were the best..........................and they never let you forget :thumright:

 

and they did no hands take offs as well i.e. hands touching their bome/dones at cat launch :angel4: :thumright:

 

Only so that their hands were much closer to the ejection seat face blind

 

We didn't keep our hands on our bone-domes. The left hand held the throttles open while the right was usually kept on your knee - never on the controls. The aircraft was barely stable in the launch configuration until the speed had built up a bit. Any inadvertant backward movement of the pole caused, for instance, by the G-forces at launch would cause the aircraft to pitch up and disappear into the oggin.

 

"Buccaneers 50th birthday your memories"

Illustrious 1985, Portland. Just parked and tying up on a Thursday morning to start preps for Sea Training the following week (which we failed, but that is another story ....).
The Buccaneers and Canberas were heading out for the Thursday war. One of the Buccaneers came down low, flew over us on the foclse whilst tying up and then down the flight deck below the level of the island.
I blame this event every time my wife whinges at me about something and I can't here her ...

V impressive flying.

 

Lossiemouth 65 the SAAF had just recieved their 8th aicraft and it was time for them to leave for home. But on its last test flight the starboard oleo wouldnt come down. the pilot Capt/Jooste and observer L/T De Klerck where ordered to head out to sea and eject. But they elected not too and did a text book landing on the nose wheel and port wheel . just tilted when she came to stop! Quick repair and the squadron left for S.A. :salut: :thumright:

 

I can remember the Buc from 15 and 16 Sqn in RAFG. A mate of mine, a rigger, who worked on them said "Buccaneers weren't made, they were quarried".

At low level the Buc could actually carry more further than the Tornado.

 

PS to my last, the Buccaneer yet another good hand down from the RN to the RAF!

 

Glamorgan 71 or 72 somewhere in the Atlantic on exercise with the yanks.

A pipe was made that (i think) Corsairs (I think) would be making a pass at wave top level. Four or five made a pass from port stern to fwd stbd and passed over the ship.

A few minutes later the pipe was made to standby for another wave top pass from the Bucs of Eagles sqn, f' me, we were stood on the flag deck and they came up the side from fwd and we could actually see into the aircraft and the pilots flying them.

That was wave top, not what the yanks called wave top. Nice one boys.

 

When I was on the old Ark (77-79) the Buccs of 809 sqn were flown mainly by crab pilots. And a good bunch they were too. They were used for bombing and inflight refuelling. It was amazing to watch them when they were bombing practice when we were towing our splash target. They used to bomb it from below the horizon so you could not see anything until the bomb struck. They were able to do this by tossing the bomb out of the revolving bomb bay and the bomb flew like a missile straight up and down again onto the target.

 

just a bit of useless info for you /the attack procedure was called "The long toss" :thumright:

 

You are correct in the fact that the Buccaneer had a revolving bomb bay and that it was capable of tossing a bomb. This bomb bay was rarely used though as most of the time for practice bombing the bombs would have been loaded onto pylons beneath the wings.
I question using either Medium toss Mode or Long Toss mode on a ships splash target. Though fairly accurate there would have been a probability of hitting the ship. Long Toss was used to deliver a nuclear weapon and the bomb was released from a distance of four miles. Also for practice bombing (splash targets) it would have been normal practise to use 28lb bombs, these were far lighter than the much larger BOMB but had been aerodynamically designed to give the same flight profile.
The splash target was usually used by Buccaneers for 2" RP (rocket projectiles) and ADSL (Automatic Depressed Sight Line) bombing.
ADSL looks like dive bombing but has some subtle differences.

 

According to a QWI I once knew, about the only ballistics the 28 lb bomb simulated were its own.

An amusing dit I heard from a Buccaneer pilot, concerned some protesters who occupied a splash target in the Wainfleet area sometime in the 70s. Our hero set up for a SNEB attack on the target and once he had put the pipper on the target he could no longer see it! The protesters were of course unaware of this minor detail and sat there thinking that the Bucc would not attack. Fortunately for them the pilot's aim was not too good on that day and the rounds were not live, however I would have loved to have seen their reactions as the sea around them exploded as the contents of 2 SNEB cans arrived.

 

Crabman
Are you sure that the QWI was not just blaming the practice bombs for his own failings?
As a young REM I spent some time at Tain bombing range and those small bombe certainly caused maintenance to be carried out on the targets.