Gallery No 27 - Valiant

Aircraft - 2 Images

My thanks to Roger Dunn, (Wikepedia for text) and the MOD for supplying these images.

The British Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command left World War II with a policy of using heavy four-piston-engined bombers for massed raids. It remained committed to this policy in the immediate postwar period, adopting the Avro Lincoln, an updated version of the WW2 Lancaster, as its standard bomber.

The development of jet aircraft and nuclear weapons soon made this policy obsolete. The future appeared to belong to jet bombers that could fly at high altitude and speed, without defensive armament, to perform a nuclear strike on a target.

General characteristics
Crew: five - two pilots, two navigators, electronics engineer
Length: 108 ft 3 in (32.99 m)
Wingspan: 114 ft 4 in (34.85 m)
Height: 32 ft 2 in (9.80 m)
Wing area: 2,362 ft² (219 m²)
Weights:
Empty: 75,880 lb (34,400 kg)
Loaded: 21,000 lb (military load)
Maximum takeoff: 138,000 lb
Overload take-off: 175,000 ib (79,400 kg) with underwing tanks.
Powerplant: 4x Rolls-Royce Avon RA28 Mk 204 turbojets, 10,000 lb (44 kN) thrust each
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Performance
Maximum speed:Mach 0.84 at 30,000 ft plus, 414 mph (662 km/h) at sea level
Range: 4,500 miles (7,200 km) 10,000 lb bomb halfway, with underwing tanks
Service ceiling: 54,000 ft (21,036 m)
Rate of climb: 4,000 ft/min (5,792 m/min)
Wing loading: lb/ft² ( kg/m²)
Thrust-to-Weight:
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Armament
1x 10,000 lb (4,545 kg) bomb or
21x 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs

Some aircraft may appear identical but there are differences which will not be discernible from the image.

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7 Squadron
8 Squadron
Valiant V bomber in 1961

 

 

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