Black Buck One, the Vulcan Raid on the Falklands - Animated

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I remember standing on the filght deck of HMS Antrim during one of these raids. I remember watching a Vulcan fly directly overhead. I cant remember now if it was heading North or South. Anyway many, many years later I was at the Vulcan's final appearance at Prestwick airport. Martin Withers was meeting with enthusiastic kids and signing autographs. I stood in line and when my turn came, he saw a considerably older fan, who didn't want an autograph. I said to him "I was on the Antrim and you flew right over my head" He said "And"? I replied "I waved, you didn't wave back" He burst out laughing and said "I was a little busy".

actually Vulcan has enough Fuel for the whole mission, they're refueling tea for the pilots

“We’re off” absolute class. The navigator used a map off the northern hemisphere upside down to calculate the route. True Legends.

Imagine being stationed at that runway and the alarm for enemy planes wakes you up. You get out your bunk, expecting a few harriers from the carrier to harass you, only to find a massive bomber has flown thousands of miles to wreck your day.

This was such a British operation. Totally under-equipped and relying on one good old boy to make it through. I picture them twirling their mustache and drinking tea on the Vulcan.

Truly one of the most ridiculous and suicidal missions I've ever heard that actually succeeded.

A cool fact, Britain decided to purchase every single Exocet missile on the market just to stop Argentina from purchasing them

I was stationed at RAF Alconbury at the time of the war. Every morning, we'd receive classified briefings on what was happening. It was fun going home after shift, turning on the BBC, and seeing how wrong they got their stories.

I was the Wireless Operator on Ascension Island during the raid. There were a few mess-ups with planes not using the correct callsigns as went into a new day (cryptography etc). Which led to the radio calls for air to air refuelling by the Vulcans to be ignored. I was sworn at by an incredibly angry Vulcan pilot when he landed, but I was backed up the RN operations director who tore the pilot off a strip for forgetting to update the callsigns. Like everything else in real life things don't go to plan. One thing stuck out in my mind was extremely excited senior RAF officer hugging the crew of the Vulcans as they came into the Operations room (portacabin). It was in hindsight extremely brave of Vulcan crews and very British in its let's give it a go attitude.

In operation Black Buck Six, one vulcan broke his fueling nose and was forced to land in Rio here in Brazil. You can find pictures of the pilots enjoying the night in the city together with the Brazilian pilots who intercepted them with F5s. Better than drifting in a inflatable boat at the Atlantic Ocean.

The fuel problem was twofold... (for Black Buck 1 only). 1/ All the aircraft flew in formation at the same altitude, which meant that the Vulcan was not flying at it's most fuel efficient altitude. and.. 2/ The Vulcan was kept constantly topped up which meant that it was flying at maximum weight for most of the way. ( More weight means that more fuel is required). This was immediately realised and was corrected for the later Black Buck missions. Having said that a good, accurate, and informative video clip! .

There's a certain Britishness to the whole. "We don't have enough fuel." "Let's turn back, then." "No, we've got a runway to destroy."

The logistical minutiae is so often overlooked but the importance of it's success is beautifully illustrated here.

I never watched a video of little jets moving on a map so intensely as I did this one. Riveting description and one hell of an operation.

One of the best visual explanations I’ve ever seen of the raid , thanks

That is the most British thing ever. An absurdly impractical and dangerous effort for a task way over their heads that, somehow, works.

Who ever dreamed up the deck-shuffling refuel was some kind of Rubic's Cube logistics genius. The last minute swap of fuel between tankers was also a grand exhibition of intelligence, perseverance, and adaptation under duress.

I saw an interview with that guy on a cable TV show... He's totally straight during the whole thing, but the things he's saying are unbelievable... It'd been ten years, since they had done a single flight, of mid air refueling... they dragged the equipment out of the back of old hangars were it was buried... then they ran practice flights every day, trying to re-learn how to do it..... Then the flight back, the way he told the story, was unintentionally hilarious, and breathtaking... Very calmly, he says "Well, it'd been at least a decade, of training flights, and I literally never saw the fuel gauge below a half, at any moment... Now here we were, on fumes, wondering, does this gauge even work, when it's this low?? Is there any reserve built into this thing???" I remember just shaking my head and laughing at the TV screen, like, are you kidding??? omg. And then the rescue flight turns back due to low fuel... Unreal... I just found your channel. You do a great job on these. These are very well done, and very good.

Having suffered a crippling recession in the 1970's Britain's military was in sad shape. It's amazing they were able to do this.