Trips away

We used to get some good detachments in, Gibralter a lot and Lossiemouth were the local stuff but from Germany we used to go to Denmark, Canada Cold Lake, US Nellis. sometimes for 6 weeks or so.

Always had a good time and usually got quite a bit of time off.

Things we used to do

I suppose we could pride ourselves on a high standard of workmanship, but sometimes it was more a case of getting home, or getting the required number of aircraft away on somthing important. As leckies we were known to insert the odd nail instead of a fuse, to get to the other end, sometimes cigarette paper round a fuse, maybe just to keep the relight going and keep an engine functioning. Taking the firewire controllers out of one aircraft and putting it into the one due to leave was a common activity, usually with a wipe on the overalls to make it work better!

What a odd picture

The Tornado drops the bombs, it only had two available stations, the Bucc could carry many more bombs, allbeit some in the bomb bay, non Pavespike, and also carry the paveway pod, so these two buccs were way better than the tornado.

The wisdom of it

It will probably never be even clear or resolved about whether the Buccaneer could have operated for longer than it it did but two facts exist:
1) It had a longer range than the tornado
2) it could carry four sea eagle missiles, the only aircraft to be able to do so

The role it was best at was low level against a capital ship, and operating off a carrier, do you think there is a case for it to be the aircraft to be first deployed on the new carriers....
After all there are no carrier borne aircraft left and the population of the new carriers might not be practical till 2026...

And then there was the bomb door

The bomb door was replaced on entering RAF service with a combined fuel tank and bomb bay door. It rotated into place through 180 degs, so was ingenious in causing no drag, carrying 4,000lb of bombs and fuel as well. As it rotated, that meant you couldn't get to anything behind it without rotating it, it was a massive door....

Electricians worked on valves in the bomb bay along with bomb bay door microswitches amongst others.
This meant getting on the door in the side position, then as it rotated you were clinging to it, so that when it closed you were inside. This was convenient to do the work but very dangerous if the door moved unexpectedly whilst you were getting on or off. there was a dirty great rod to hold it in position, but it had to fitted and removed which was problematic in itself, we mostl cut the corner and just climbed on to get rotated inside by the person on the hydraulic rig.

I used to breath a sigh of relief when we got out ok each time.

More interesting technical problems

Ummm, this one is interesting because you have to hang on to actually get through the functional check.
The tailplane - it rotates in the forward plane, so forward and back; the tailplane flap is on the trailing edge and also goes up and down independently.

We used to have tailplane flap problems which were often diagnosed as tailplane flap actuator faults, this meant changing it and then testing it. It shouldn't have been a problem but we did have occasions with an over zealous rigger who pushed the column backwards and forwards whilst testing the tailplaneflaps. As we were perched on top of it at the time, you need to have a free hand ready to grap something so you didn't fall off.

Yesterday was a normal day, now for the problems

Buccaneers were old aircraft even when we first got them.
Designed in the early fifties, there were some things they were exceptionally good at, but some things were prone to failure. With approx 16 to fly per day, as much as three times each they exhibited their problems in a short period, a few weeks perhaps without a noticeable problem but not much longer. the best ones made it through to a primary without more than a few jobs but the worst were only lasting 1-2 trips without something mysterious happening.
As an electrical\instruments guy some of the gear was just tempremental, such as the fire relays. on a start up if they failed the routine was to get one of us to go up the accessories bay, pull off the faulty relay, clean the contacts and put it back on. fingers crossed on the restart and that got us past the first few times it packed up.
But some were more persistent in failing, the relay then needed to be changed, this meant going to another aircraft on the line, pulling one out of that one, and putting it in the first aircraft waiting to go.
This took 15 minutes tops. then restart and the aircraft went, but the one that was robbed was now "faulty", but usually meant nobody mentioning it and waiting for it to occur on that aircraft later.
Other items in that category were the anti skid generators, some of the solenoids, ones round the undercarraige were annoying, as if they didn't work the undercarriage did peculiar things such as not coming down at the right moment. to be honest the electricians were usually hanging back on the undercarraige problems because the riggers always got the first few rounds of troubleshooting before we were called in. Jackups and U\C ground tests, followed by the obligatory "no fault found" for the first few snags of this kind were usual.

The anti collision lights were mostly faulty when night flying was required; and were destined to always need attention until they introduced laser ones much later on.
Alternators were mostly ok, but the control and protection units were a bit cranky, a bit like the fire relays.
You could change one that was absolutely fine except that day, put another one in and fix the problem but have the first one checked and nothing wrong.

Typical day in the life of a Bucc Squadron - just the basics

Our squadron (when i was on the OCU) had 20 aircraft, but only 16 capable of doing day to day operations, the others were away on majors and swop rounds. we had a few hunters to make it like that and if they were included it would have been 22-24ish.

We used to do earlys to tow out around 7, probably the first dozen, which would be for the 8:30 wave.

After they were BF'd they would go and if it was a full day we would get an 11am wave ready, and tow out ones to top up and tow in the failures from the 8:30 wave.

Typically in the hanger the primarys and primary *'s would be done as a routine and the line was run by about 20-25 linies. in the hanger there was approx 50-60 guys of all trades.

The 11am wave would go and the 8:30 would return and because they would be up for a hour or two we would fit in lunch whilst they were away.

Generally in the afternoon there might be a 2pm wave, but the flying might be staggered with some on shift change to the evening shift at around 4:30, the shift change didn't have as many guys but was probably 50ish in total.

We did night flying so the evening shift covered a 7pm wave and maybe an 11pmish one.

We would recover the broken ones as that went on and on the hangar the ones that could be fixed for the following morning were worked on, and the primarys and primary *'s continued so they could be out there once completed.

The night shift had supper around 10:30 to 11 and the normal worked ceased around 02:30 the following morning.

To sustain the 12 ready in the morning, enough aircraft had to be worked on during the night shift so if there wasn't enough ready ,we would stay till they were ready which sometimes meant 5am, but we didn't often personally hand back to the day shift.

We did however work on saturdays on the OCU and flew two waves on saturday morning.