Handley Page Victor
The Handley Page Victor is a British jet-powered strategic bomber developed and produced by Handley Page during the Cold War. It was the third and final 'V bomber' to be operated by the Royal Air Force, the other two being the Vickers Valiant and the Avro Vulcan.
Entering service in 1958, the Victor was initially developed as part of the United Kingdom's airborne nuclear deterrent. It was retired from the nuclear mission in 1968, following the discovery of fatigue cracks, which had been exacerbated by the RAF's adoption of a low-altitude flight profile to avoid interception. The pending introduction of the Royal Navy's submarine-launched Polaris missiles in 1969 meant a large bomber force would no longer be needed, and the decision was made to retire the Victors from front-line service in favour of the Vulcan.
A number of Victors were modified for strategic reconnaissance, using a combination of radar, cameras, and other sensors. Prior to the introduction of Polaris, some had already been converted into tankers to replace similar converted Valiants. Further tanker conversions followed and in 1982 some of these re-purposed Victors refuelled Vulcan bombers during the Black Buck raids of the Falklands War. The Victor was the last of the V-bombers to be retired from service on 15 October 1993. The Victor was replaced by Vickers VC10 and Lockheed Tristar tankers.
Development
Origins
The origin of the Victor and the other V bombers is linked to the early British atomic weapons programme and nuclear deterrent policies that were developed after the Second World War. The atom bomb programme formally began with Air Staff Operational Requirement OR.1001 issued in August 1946, which anticipated a government decision in January 1947 to authorise research and development work on atomic weapons; the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1946 prohibited the export of atomic knowledge, even to countries that had collaborated on the Manhattan Project. OR.1001 envisaged a weapon not to exceed in length, in diameter, in weight, and suitable for release from to.At the same time, the Air Ministry drew up requirements for bombers to replace the piston-engined heavy bombers such as the Avro Lancaster and the new Avro Lincoln which equipped RAF Bomber Command. In January 1947, the Ministry of Supply distributed Specification B.35/46 to aviation companies to satisfy Air Staff Operational Requirement OR.229 for "a medium range bomber landplane capable of carrying one bomb to a target from a base which may be anywhere in the world". A cruising speed of at heights between and was specified. The maximum weight when fully loaded ought not to exceed. The weapons load was to include a "Special gravity bomb", or over shorter ranges of conventional bombs. No defensive weapons were to be carried, the aircraft relying on its speed and altitude to avoid opposing fighters.
The similar OR.230 required a "long range bomber" with a radius of action at a height of, a cruising speed of, and a maximum weight of when fully loaded. Responses to OR.230 were received from Short Brothers, Bristol, and Handley Page; the Air Ministry recognised that developing an aircraft to meet these stringent requirements would have been technically demanding and so expensive that the resulting bomber could be purchased only in small numbers. Realising that the majority of likely targets would not require such a long range, a less demanding specification for a medium-range bomber, Air Ministry Specification B.35/46 was issued. This demanded the ability to carry the same 10,000 lb bomb-load to a target away at a height of at a speed of.
HP.80
The design proposed by Handley Page in response to B.35/46 was given the internal designation of HP.80. To achieve the required performance, Handley Page's aerodynamicist Dr. Gustav Lachmann and his deputy, Godfrey Lee developed a crescent-shaped swept wing for the HP.80. Aviation author Bill Gunston described the Victor's compound-sweep crescent wing as having been "undoubtedly the most efficient high-subsonic wing on any drawing board in 1947". The sweep and chord of the wing decreased in three distinct steps from the root to the tip, to ensure a constant critical Mach number across the entire wing and consequently a high cruise speed. The other parts of the aircraft which accelerate the flow, the nose and tail, were also designed for the same critical mach number so the shape of the HP.80 had a constant critical mach number all over. Early work on the project included tailless aircraft designs, which would have used wing-tip vertical surfaces instead; however as the proposal matured, a high-mounted, full tailplane was adopted instead. The profile and shaping of the crescent wing was subject to considerable fine-tuning and alterations throughout the early development stages, particularly to counter unfavourable pitching behaviour in flight.The HP.80 and Avro's Type 698 were chosen as the best two of the proposed designs to B.35/46, and orders for two prototypes of each were placed. It was recognised, however, that there were many unknowns associated with both designs, and an order was also placed for Vickers' design, which became the Valiant. Although not fully meeting the requirements of the specification, the Valiant design posed little risk of failure and could therefore reach service earlier. The HP.80's crescent wing was tested on a ⅓-scale glider, the HP.87, and a heavily modified Supermarine Attacker, which was given the Handley Page HP.88 designation. The HP.88 crashed on 26 August 1951 after completing only about thirty flights and little useful data was gained during its brief two months of existence. By the time the HP.88 was ready, the HP.80 wing had changed such that the former was no longer representative. The design of the HP.80 had sufficiently advanced that the loss of the HP.88 had little effect on the programme.
Two HP.80 prototypes, WB771 and WB775, were built. WB771 had been partially assembled at the Handley Page factory at Radlett airfield when the Ministry of Supply decided the runway was too short for the first flight. The aircraft parts were transported by road to RAF Boscombe Down where they were assembled for the first flight; bulldozers were used to clear the route and create paths around obstacles. Sections of the aircraft were hidden under wooden framing and tarpaulins printed with "GELEYPANDHY / SOUTHAMPTON" to make it appear as a boat hull in transit. GELEYPANDHY was an anagram of "Handley Pyge", marred by a signwriter's error. On 24 December 1952, piloted by Handley Page's chief test pilot Hedley Hazelden, WB771 made its maiden flight, which lasted for a total of 17 minutes. Ten days later, the Air Ministry announced the aircraft's official name to be Victor.
The prototypes performed well; however, design failings led to the loss of WB771 on 14 July 1954, when the tailplane detached whilst making a low-level pass over the runway at Cranfield, causing the aircraft to crash with the loss of the crew. Attached to the fin using three bolts, the tailplane was subjected to considerably more load than had been anticipated, causing fatigue cracking around the bolt holes. This led to the bolts loosening and failing in shear. Stress concentrations around the holes were reduced by adding a fourth bolt. The potential for flutter due to shortcomings in the design of the fin/tailplane joint was also reduced by shortening the fin. Additionally, the prototypes were tail heavy due to the lack of equipment in the nose; this was remedied by adding large ballast weights to the prototypes. Production Victors had a lengthened nose to move the crew escape door further from the engine intakes as the original position was considered too dangerous as an emergency exit in flight. The lengthened nose also improved the center of gravity range.
Victor B.1
Production B.1 Victors were powered by the Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire ASSa.7 turbojets rated at, and were initially armed with the Blue Danube nuclear weapon and later with the more powerful Yellow Sun weapon when it became available. Victors also carried U.S.-owned Mark 5 nuclear bombs and the British Red Beard tactical nuclear weapon. A total of 24 were upgraded to B.1A standard by the addition of Red Steer tail warning radar in an enlarged tail-cone and a suite of radar warning receivers and electronic countermeasures from 1958 to 1960.On 1 June 1956, a production Victor XA917 flown by test pilot Johnny Allam inadvertently exceeded the speed of sound after Allam let the nose drop slightly at a high power setting. Allam noticed a cockpit indication of Mach 1.1 and ground observers from Watford to Banbury reported hearing a sonic boom. The Victor maintained stability throughout the event. Aviation author Andrew Brookes has claimed that Allam broke the sound barrier knowingly to demonstrate the Victor's higher speed capability compared to the earlier V-bombers. The Victor was the largest aircraft to have broken the sound barrier at that time.
Victor B.2
The RAF required its bombers to be capable of higher operational ceilings, and numerous proposals were considered for improved Victors. Initially, Handley Page proposed using Sapphire 9 engines to produce a "Phase 2" bomber, to be followed by "Phase 3" Victors with the wingspan increased to and powered by Bristol Siddeley Olympus turbojets or Rolls-Royce Conway turbofans. The Sapphire 9 was cancelled and the heavily modified Phase 3 aircraft would have delayed introduction, so an interim "Phase 2A" Victor was proposed and accepted, to be powered by the Conway but with minimal modifications.The "Phase 2A" proposal became the Victor B.2, with Conway RCo.11 engines providing, which required enlarged intakes to increase the airflow to the engines, and the wingspan was increased to. The B.2 also added a pair of retractable "elephant ear" intakes on the upper rear fuselage forward of the fin, to feed air to Ram Air Turbines to provide electricity should an in-flight engine failure occur.
The first flight of the Victor B.2 prototype, serial number XH668, was made on 20 February 1959, and it had flown 100 hours by 20 August 1959, when it disappeared from radar, crashing into the sea off the Pembrokeshire coast during high-altitude engine tests carried out by the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment. Most of the wreckage had been recovered by November 1960, following an extensive search-and-recovery operation. The accident investigation concluded that the starboard pitot head had failed, causing the flight control system to force the aircraft into an unrecoverable dive. Minor changes resolved the problem, allowing the B.2 to enter service in February 1962.