Well that’s a relief - NATO’s first line of defence gets the fuel it needs…
Poisson d’avril?
No I don’t think so - the post is dated today (4th April)
ETA: …but then again the original post on Forces News that the BBC linked to is dated 1st April.
I read that earlier. It was too good a title to miss.
Probably is a Poisson d’Avril, but interestingly I would think that it is quite possible for a Tunnocks teacake to explode (although not very impressivly) in an aircraft, particularly an unpressurized one at altitude. It’s the same principle that can cause concrete to explode if heated … I have personal experience of this
I believe the very advanced but ill-fated BAC TSR2 aircraft that Harold Wilson’s government cancelled in the 60s was due to be armed with air-to-air missiles tipped with Tunnocks teacakes.
(The “T” in TSR2 stood for Tunnocks).
Where is that ? I thought all the airframes were broken up shortly after it was cancelled, much like with the later Nimrod variants. Or is it just a mockup ?
I believe there’s an airframe at Duxford, remember seeing it back in the 90s. I was also invited to get in the driving seat of a B52 that was undergoing maintenence. For such a massive aircraft, the cockpit was tiny.
I was invited into a Nimrod MR2 at RAF Kinloss in the 70’s with two others. We were escorted by an ASF officer who kept a strict eye on us. From a 70’s perspective it was like something out of a sci-fi series.
Conversely, I had a flight in a Hercules and it felt like something out of the 40s
It’s not my photo, but I believe it’s the fourth (and last) prototype and is at the Imperial War Museum collection at Duxford.
Fifteen quid if you want to have a look round.
It might be false memory but I’m convinced that my father pointed out the TSR2 flying over my childhood home in Salisbury on it’s way in or out of nearby Boscombe Down.
It seems to have become a byword for projects that could have been great but were cut off too early.
I had sever flights in a Hercules out of Lyneham. One the one that was doing circuits and bumps was the worst.
Before the Nimrod arrived the Shackletons of Costal Command were a regular sight in the skies over the sky over my home town in Cornwall. They looked just like the WW2 Lancasters that I had read so much about.
Yes the Shackleton was an Avro product - derived from the Avro Lincoln bomber which itself was a derivative of the Lancaster.
The Shackletons had contra rotating propellors. Saw them at RAF Lossiemouth down the road from Kinloss when I was there. Magnificent if slightly wood and glue sort of aircraft. Didn’t get to go in one of those, although I did ask
Around 1960 I was put in the pilot’s seat of a Vulcan bomber by my father, who was the quality control inspector on their production line. Not sure what was more terrifying -the zillions of incomprehensible controls and dials or the height the cockpit was off the ground…
I once spent an evening with quite a few pilots who had flown Vulcans earlier in their careers. They started talking about the best place that they had been stranded when the Vulcan broke. The winner was the pilot who had had a broken cockpit cowling in Hawaii. Not only did he get to spend a week there but the RAF flew a Hercules with half a dozen fitters out to fix it. A good time was had by all.
I was once walking through Brighton on the street one back from the seafront when there was a horrendous noise and shop windows started shaking. I thought it was the end of the World or perhaps just a big earthquake but it turned out to be a Vulcan doing a slow speed turn just off the coast.
I remember attending the Finningley air show on several occasions in the 1960s and latterly seeing a row of Vulcan bombers parked up, an impressive sight.
RAF Finningley air displays were the best and the premises soon ro be reopened (again) as Dony airport.
I had a boyfriend who was a Vulcan pilot.y