NZFF

This is a screen grab with a little tweaking....if you're not familiar with military acronyms, QRA is "Quick Reaction Alert"

The Vulcan was on QRA in the nuclear strike role if Russia had launched an attack. Originally armed with the Blue Danube weapon, this was replaced by the Blue Steel weapon..which had a tendency to leak fuel.
Later variants of the Vulcan had a "pimple" on the nose of the aircraft which was a radar similar to the TFR used on F-111s.

This "QRA" affected us and with the beginning of the 2nd Cold War we are becoming more and more aware of it. But at that time there were responsible politicians, officials and military men who, despite all the hostility, were aware of what was aware in the event of an emergency. I have legitimate doubts about that today.

simonh wrote:The Vulcan was on QRA in the nuclear strike role if Russia had launched an attack.

I spent a week (as an Air Cadet) at RAF Coningsby in exactly that period. 3 Vulcans fully fueled and armed at the end of the runway *all the time*. What they didn't tell us was that they periodically did full scale drills with no warning. Even the crews didn't know whether it was a drill or for real. Imagine the horror when one went off at 4am one morning. Coningsby would have been a No.1 priority target so we would have been some the first to go ...

Many people talk about the famous Vulcan "howl" ... not exactly a pleasant sound at 4am when you think it's the overture to nuclear armageddon.

That said - the RAF were more than generous to us spotty kids. Fun and games in Chipmunks and Scalextrix races in the readiness huts: that's what the readiness crews did to amuse themselves. Quite a bizarre sight, really, to see fully kitted up airmen whooping it up with plastic racing cars!

I went to high school in Dundee, although my home was in Perth. The school was barely 5nm from RAF Leuchars, a Class A target because it was the first line of defence for the industrial midlands of Scotland. We often heard the Lightnings going out, either on practice intercepts or real ones. The pollies had just spent millions on Fylingdales, to provide a 4-minute warning of nuclear attack. Personally, if I was about to be vaporised in four minutes' time, I would rather not know about it at all. Mum and Dad, 20 miles inland, just might have noticed the flash before they too were vaporised. But not to worry, the pollies spent millions more upgrading Fylingdales to detect an object the size of a domestic door, as far beyond the Moon as the Moon was from Earth. That would provide 8 minutes warning. Absolute madness.

Nice silhouette.