This book by Rowland White tells the incredible story of the first Black Buck mission – the first of five Vulcan bomber attacks carried out on Port Stanley during the 1982 Falklands War.
The book really divides into two main sections:
1. The background explaining the history of the Vulcan bomber and the V-force, as well as the state of this fleet of these much-loved but antiquated aircraft had fallen into by 1982.
2. The raid itself – including the preparations, and the immense logistical and engineering challenges faced by the RAF, and how these were overcome.
(There is also a brief coda, that talks about what happened after the raid).
The Vulcan has always been a popular aircraft in Britain, and it’s easy to assume that this popularity automatically translated into operational capability. When you read this book, you will have a new appreciation that the operational capability mainly came as a result of the tremendous skill of RAF engineers and aircrew.
The thing that I love most about the book is it explores, in lucid detail, the engineering challenges that the RAF faced, and overcame. For example: What do you do if the inflight refuel system has been removed more than a decade ago, and you need to restore it? How do you attach a modern ECM pod to an aircraft which has no appropriate fitting for it, and for which there is no time to design a new fitting?
In short, I absolutely love this book. I’m confident that anybody with even a modicum of interest in military aviation will too.
Vulcan 607 Review
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