From there, Victors did little in the way of armed combat. They would never release any of their ordnance in anger. As time wore on, the type served as a strategic reconnaissance platform in the form of the modified Victor SR.Mk 2. SR.Mk 2's were appropriately fitted with various photographic and reconnaissance systems for the role, and the bomb bay of the Victor proved to offer enough internal space for such a conversion. These reconnaissance systems were then pressed into service to replace the long-running - and now decidedly aged - Vickers Valiants in the role. At least 9 Victor SR.Mk 2's were created by modifying existing Victor B.Mk 2 bombers with the first being flown on February 25th, 1965 and entering service with No. 543 Squadron in May of that year.
Likewise, the first generation Victors were pressed into service as in-flight refueling tankers to replace - once again - the aging Valiants. These Victors initially took on the designations of BK.Mk 1 and BK.Mk 1A based on their former model designations but these were late more aptly named to K.Mk 1 and K.Mk 1A as their initial roles of dedicated bombers were all but over. The K.Mk 2 soon followed suit and were (naturally) based on the Victor B.Mk 2 series. K.Mk 2's operated from July 1975 onwards, joining up with No. 57 Squadron and began replacing the K.Mk 1's. Victor tankers served in an operational role through the 1993 Invasion of Iraq and quietly ended their careers from that point on.
A total of 86 Victors of all types were constructed as bomber, reconnaissance and tanker forms. Essentially, the Victor was produced in three major batches - the being the two prototype forms followed by the 50 B.Mk 1 models and then the 34 B.Mk 2 models. Tanker, reconnaissance and updated bomber forms basically appeared as conversion models of the two production batches.
Design
Design-wise, the Victor was such a unique aircraft even when viewed from any angle. The top-down view offered up a form similar to that of a swallow. Nothing like it had ever flown before. Wings featured the aforementioned crescent shape which consisted of the wing root, then a bend that formed the remaining inboard and outboard wing sections. The four engines - two to a side - were ingeniously mounted inside the wing roots to produce a most aerodynamic design and consisted of 4 x Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire 7 202/207 series turbojet engines developing 11,000lbf of thrust each. This choice of engine placement, however, must not have endeared the large aircraft to her ground crews as engine access was hardly an easy affair. The fuselage was pinched at the nose and the tail. The nose appeared as though a finely crafted arrowhead or bullet with a streamlined cockpit made up of framed windows. The fuselage was larger in the forward portion consisting of the cockpit and slimmed somewhat just aft of this area. The fuselage then slimmed much more towards the empennage eventually ending to a point. The empennage was decorated with a high-mounted T-style horizontal planes on a single vertical fin mounted to the extreme point on the fin. The horizontal surfaces had noticeable dihedral. It should be noted that virtually all surfaces of the aircraft featured sweep back, making for one truly streamlined machine.
The undercarriage of the Victor was of a traditional tricycle type. The main gears retracted into the wings and featured 8 wheels to a gear. The nose landing gear was fitted with two wheels and recessed aft under the cockpit. When on the ground, the Victor did not offer much in the way of clearance particularly under and around the bulbous forward fuselage.
The cockpit offered up quite a bit of room for pilot and co-pilot alike. The forward view was dominated by the slanting window frames while the main instrument panel took up the rest of the area. A centrally-located console was positioned between the pilots. Crew accommodations amounted to the two pilots, a pair of navigators and a dedicated electronic systems officer. Despite the crew of five, only the pilot and co-pilot were afforded ejection seats.
Armament
As a conventional bomber, the Victor could be fielded with a collection of some 34 x 1,000lb bombs. Much like the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, the Victor could be used in carpet bombing sorties to suppress or disrupt enemy formations and structures through sheer force. Munitions were held in an internal bomb bay which could also be used for additional fuel in place of armament for a vast increase to overall operating range.
Seeing it that the Victor was only designed as a conventional operator in a secondary role, the system was fully integrated to carry and release nuclear-armed munitions - the aircraft's primary role. This nuclear armament could consist of a "British Yellow Sun" thermonuclear bomb or American inspired nuclear weapons as available. Beyond these offensive-minded implementations, there was little in the way of defensive armament for the crew to handle. These were the days of the Cold War of course, so speed and altitude were everything for a bomber - that is - until the advent of more sophisticated radar and surface-to-air homing missiles by her enemies.
Operational Service
Victors were used in their tanker form during the British 1982 Falklands War with Argentina. Victors provided much needed in-flight refueling for RAF bombers in an effort for the heavy hitters to reach Argentine ground targets. Beyond that, the aircraft served in a similar role during the 1991 Persian Gulf War against Iraq. These Victors would serve both US and British aircraft in the conflict and would be removed from this (and any other role) with British forces from 1993 onwards.
Conclusion
The final point of the V-bomber triangle - as rough of a development period as it was - proved to be a pinnacle of British Cold War bomber design. The aircraft exhibited much of what made it unique in terms of both form and function and provided the RAF with a long-range, high-flying, heavy-hitter that made the world notice. Advancements by adversaries on the ground eventually changed the intended role some and time altogether removed her as a potential player in future roles. At the very least, the Victor proved to be something of a special plane, providing a futuristic style to design a complimentary capabilities that made her a powerful factor in the English strategic nuclear air arm.
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