Although this section of the site deals with the Crew members, we should not forget the unsung heroes, the groundcrew.  To many of them the Crew was the bunch of tear-aways who would take a decent aircraft, then go away and break it.

Diagram of crew area Crew roles Escape facilities

There were five members of a Vulcan crew, as there were with all three ‘V’ Bombers; two Pilots, two Navigators and an Air Electronics Officer (AEO). The photo below shows the crew I was on with 101 Squadron, Tony Burton’s crew, unfortunately Tony died on 22nd March 2006.  On the left we have Rick Hesselwood (Co-Pilot), Ray Hifle (AEO), Tony (Captain), myself as Navigator-Radar and ‘Taff’ Reese as Navigator-Plotter.

Crews were usually pretty tight units, you were together for 2 to 2 1/2 years and when you were overseas you lived out of each others pockets.  You tended to operate as a social unit, and then in the larger social unit, the Squadron.  You were competitive with others on the Squadron as individuals, all Nav Radars wanted to be top of their Squadron bombing 'ladder', and crews would be competitive with others to produce the best bombing and navigation scores on the Squadron.

Burton Crew on the pan at RAAF Darwin, 1973  XM653.  The photo was taken by the photographer from the Lincoln Echo who had travelled with the detachment, we knew him quite well.  This was a Saturday, and there was an ‘air day’ at Darwin, you can see the crowd in the background. We took off, did a low level couple of passes then flew off for a weekend in Brisbane.  Very nice too.

I have cut this out of the larger photo to go through the flying kit worn by the crew. First thing to notice is that none of them are carrying their flying helmet (bone dome), these are in the aircraft.  On the co-pilots leg you can see a survival knife, all crew members had one on their suit. Both pilots have a Plexiglas map pad on their right knee.  This was usually used together with a chinagraph (wax) pencil for making a note of air-traffic messages, radio frequencies etc. On the copilot you can see two pipes, one from his right hand pocket, one on his front, coming together at the bottom in a common connector.  The pipe from his pocket is to allow hot/cold air to his air-vent suit worn under the flying suit, the other is for oxygen.  The 3 rear-crew members have similar connections, but their pipes do not come together in one connector, they connect differently at each crew station.  Just below the Captain’s knees you can see a strap around each leg, these connect to the ejector seat and pull his legs off the rudder pedals as the seat leaves the aircraft should he eject.

All three are wearing their ‘life preserver’ or inflatable life jacket should they go down over water (separate section on sea survival training), again all five crew members wear these, but myself and ‘Taff’ have thrown ours up onto our seats in the aircraft.  The Captain is holding his flying gloves, these were usually worn all the time by the pilots, not so much by rear crew, they seemed awkward when messing with maps.  Parachutes and individual survival dinghies were part of the crew seats, so you would strap into them when you got into the seat.  The flying suit had a number of pockets all over it, usually the one on the left leg, below the knee, held the individual medical pack complete with morphine phial in case of injury on escape from the aircraft.  As the Vulcan did not ‘pull G’ like a modern fighter aircraft, the crew did not wear anti-G pressure suits.

Another photo of the ‘Burton’ crew, I have to say, we were not entitled to stand there.  These are the trophies won by the crews in the Bombing Competition (Giant Voice) against the US B52s.  When the photographer had finished the official photos and the rightful winners and dignitaries had moved away, we grabbed the photographer and got him to take a photo of ourselves as winners.  Bit of a cheek, but a good photo. I am 2nd from the left.

The diagram below shows the layout of the crew area on the Vulcan.  The two pilots at the front with ejector seats, the three rear crew behind them, facing backwards (this was the same in all three V bombers). The three rear crew are on a level a little lower than the pilots. There is a small ladder up to the pilot seats from the rear crew area.  The canopy over the pilot area is ejected before the pilots can eject, when the canopy goes the front window sections in front of the pilots remain in place.  In modern jets the pilot can eject ‘through’ the canopy, giving a faster exit, but on the Vulcan the canopy is made of metal. You can also see that the crew dinghy, big enough for all five members, is in the back of the canopy. This is additional to the individual dinghy that each crew member has in his crew seat.  This is strapped to his ‘bum’ and goes with him when he ‘escapes’ from the aircraft.

Diagram of the crew stations taken from my OCU notes.

In brief, what were the roles of the five crew members.

Pilots.

The aircraft was originally conceived as being piloted by one man, not two, and this is one reason for the 'cosiness' of the pilots area. It is also why the aircraft is flown by a control column a little like a fighter stick rather than the 'handlebar' of most large aircraft.  The 'captain' of a Vulcan crew was always the main pilot while the copilot was often, but not always, a relatively new pilot. I believe that in the early days of the 'V' force the copilot may also have been a pilot with considerable experience, but during my time they were usually a relatively new pilot, and this was often their first squadron 'tour' after leaving their flying training.  Again while I was on Vulcans the copilot would normally hope that following his 'apprenticeship' as a copilot, he would go on to do his next tour as a Captain, which is what often happened. The two full tours I did, the first at Scampton on 27 Squadron and the second on 101 Squadron at Waddington were both with Captains for whom this was their first Captain tour following their tour as a Copilot.  Our 27 Sqn. crew was captained by 'Ernie' Bishop who was only 23 when he got his Captaincy, very young.  On 101 it was different, Tony Burton was an ex AEO on Vulcans who had done a copilot tour and was a 'little' older.

While there was a lot of leg-pulling between crew functions, the rear crew expected the Captain to be safe, to be competent and to lead and make decisions. At the end of the day the safety of the aircraft and the crew were the responsibility of the Captain.  This would come into play particularly when the crew was abroad on a 'Ranger' operating as an independent unit. The Captain would also have a mentoring role over the copilot, he would be expected to do all he could to educate and grow the copilot into a future crew captain, this would be done by gradually increasing the co-pilots flying and crew-leading functions through the tour so that at the end of 2 1/2 years the copilot was doing most of the day-to-day running of the crew. Not all co-pilots managed this, either because of their flying ability, or (related to this) a lack of confidence in him from the rear crew, or even if he could operate the aircraft, no credibility as a leader.

The photo below (crown copyright) shows just how close together are the two pilot ejector seats. The top of the canopy is removed, as it would be if they had to eject, the canopy goes first. For a large aircraft the pilot area is pretty small and ‘comfy’.

Air Electronics Officer, AEO.

The Air Electronics Officer was part of the Rear-Crew, along with the two Navigators.  The AEO was often from a Shackleton or Nimrod background, and one of the crews I joined the AEO had previously been on a Nimrod rear crew with my brother who was then a Navigator on Nimrods.  The AEO's role was primarily to monitor, manage and control the aircraft electrics systems as all flying controls were electrically powered, without electrics the aircraft was 'dead'. As well as control of the electrics the AEO played an essential role on communications, particularly on long trips away from the UK where HF and morse were still used for communication between the aircraft and Bomber (Strike) Command back in the UK. In a war scenario the AEO would be responsible for operating the Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) kit for jamming enemy radars and communications that might interfere with the Vulcan en-route to and from its target. 

Navigators

The Vulcan carried two Navigators on the crew who were in the rear crew section, facing backwards, with not much daylight. The Nav 'Plotter' sat in the centre of the rear crew desk, on his left (the right hand side of the aircraft) was the Nav Radar, and on the 'Plotter's' right was the AEO. The two navigator roles were different.  The Plotter did the flight planning for the sortie and would be responsible for en-route navigation on both the high and low level phases of the sortie  The Radar was responsible for the bombing phases of the sortie (of which more elsewhere) as well as assisting the Plotter with his en-route navigation. This help came in a couple of different forms.  The radar could be used as an aid to feed accurate pin-point 'fixes' into the Plotters instrumentation (the GPI6), also when the Plotter required astro as a navigation aid he would make the necessary calculations for sextant settings, and the Radar would then use the sextant to 'shoot' the star shot.

As a general rule when I was on Vulcans the plotter was a navigator with more time under his belt, and the Radar was somewhat newer, having said that on the 27 Sqn crew both myself and the Plotter were effectively first tour navigators while on the 101 crew I was doing my second tour as a Radar while the Plotter was on his second flying tour, but his first on Vulcans.  His previous tour had been as a nav/observer with the Fleet Air Arm flying in Sea Vixens off HMS Ark Royal, a bit hairy!

Escape facilities.

One big difference between facilities for the front and rear crews was how to escape from the aircraft in the event of a serious problem; the front crew had ejector seats, the rear crew did not. At one time consideration had been given to the development of a system allowing ejector seats for the rear crew as well, but this was abandoned. The proposal was complex, and I have no idea if it was practical.  The proposal was that a section of the cabin roof above the Plotter should open, the Radar and AEO seats would then tilt inwards, the Plotter would eject first vertically through the hole, the Radar and AEO would shoot through at an angle.  Who knows, but take a look at a photo of the test rig. The photo is from the Andy Leitch site.

As the proposal above did not come into service, the following outlines what we did have.

While the two pilots were able to eject the canopy, and then eject themselves through the resulting hole, the rear crew had to go out through the floor. The normal entry to the Vulcan is through the floor of the rear crew compartment, a door in the floor is lowered and a removable ladder used to climb up and in.  In the event of the rear crew having to abandon aircraft, this same door in the floor is the way out.  In an emergency it is the role of the Radar to leave his seat, ensure that the ladder is removed from the door and operate the door release, this forces the door open against the pressure of the slipstream, using pneumatic pressure. The rear crew then exit in the order, Radar, AEO, and Plotter.  At high level the crew slide down the door and on exit their parachute will be operated by a static line and hopefully they descend safely with their dinghy and survival pack.  If at low level when the emergency happens the adrenaline would pump somewhat faster as there is a minimum height below which you are unlikely to survive, about 300ft, so you hope the pilot is converting speed to height to give you a chance.  Should the emergency occur when the aircraft is in the situation that the main wheels are down (i.e. in the circuit, just before landing, just after takeoff) then the survival chances of the rear crew are further reduced.  The problem is that the exit door is in front of the large main wheel assembly so if you slide down the door you hit the main wheel at about 200 mph, this should be avoided! The recommendation is to go down the door holding on to one of the struts that support the door and then 'swing round the main wheel'. You need to be an optimist for that one.

The photo on the right is crown copyright from the Andy Leitch site.  It shows my office chair, comfy you might say. The seat is swivelled so the photo has been taken from the top of the crew entrance ladder looking backwards towards the nav table, the Radar screen is visible in the centre of the photo.  The parachute is included in the large back pad you can see with the buff coloured shoulder straps. One of the lap straps can be seen on the right of the picture. Hanging over the centre front of the seat is the ‘crutch strap’ part of the harness and visible are the cables from the ‘D’ ring to deploy the chute should the static line not work when you evacuate.

This shot shows the way in, and then the second ladder up to the pilot stations. [I am afraid I do not know the source of this photo]

A blow up of a shot of our aircraft at Goose Bay, showing the proximity of the nose-wheel to the access door, and the problem you would have to exit the aircraft in an emergency with the wheels down. Photo J Dillon