VICTOR ‘CHIEF TECHS’ OF ‘A’ SQN, VICTOR B.1, 1959
I came across an old Victor ‘Lecture Notes’ document some years ago and was delighted to find some hand-written names from the past listed in it, relating to the early years of the Victor’s introduction into RAF service. The document itself was dated 1959, but what was especially fascinating were the serials of B.1 Victors, with Chief Tech personalities listed against their respective charges – I assume the ‘Chief Techs’ as entered on the graphic were the forerunners of those who later became called ‘Crew Chiefs’ and who ended their Victor service on the K.2′s retirement.

Barring one airframe, these are all early ‘XA’ serialled Victors, and so I thought it would be a tribute to these early carers of the Victor to do a special graphic while adding the Sqn/Service-entry dates of the aircraft listed, to make it hopefully something to remember.

The Victor B.1 served with the squadrons of RAF Bomber Command’s No. 3 Group for four years before the introduction of the improved Victor 2, during which time the bomber was responsible for some outstanding routine flights, including one from England to Malta in two hours at a speed of 655 m.p.h., and a transatlantic crossing in 188 minutes, at an average speed of 644 m.p.h.

Referring back to these earlier exploits of its forebear, some publicity on the advent of the Mk.2 stated that “Such flights may, to the lay mind, appear somewhat pedestrian by comparison with the Mach 2.0- plus flights made by the USAF’s B-58A Hustler, but the British bomber was designed for an entirely different flight envelope and, in several respects, possesses greater flexibility than its supersonic American counterpart.”

V.A. member Mike Dunk recalls being sent on graduation as an airframe mechanic to RAF Cottesmore in 1957, and we will be serialising his recollections next issue. It was a path which would lead to him to work on this most futuristic-looking aircraft:

“The station was being developed into a V-Bomber base and things seemed very primitive. We carried out guard duties and fire pickets whilst the new longer runway and buildings were gradually finished. Johnnie Johnson was appointed our CO and we all knew about his wartime heroism and flying skills. He really was one of the boys and we were very proud to serve under him.”

In July of 1957 Mike packed bags packed again, this time to RAF Gaydon to do his airframe course on the Valiant bomber. “At last we knew that Cottesmore was to be a Valiant base!”he recalls, though on returning initially to Cottesmore that “things were still very quiet on the camp, but Valiants started to arrive for resprays. They arrived in their colours of silver/grey and we had to spray them anti dazzle white which produced a beautiful looking aircraft. Milk was supplied daily to the spraying team due to the large amount of toxic fumes around. All this activity but still no aircraft of our own.”

THE VICTOR ARRIVES AT COTTESMORE
But suddenly: “Then, one day quite out of the blue, a beautiful white Victor bomber XA936, arrived on the runway and came to a halt. My best friend Kevin Shaw and I were dispatched with the tug driver to bring it back into the hangar. We luckily had a towing arm but didn’t know exactly how to fit it. Fortunately crew chief Widdup who arrived with the aircraft knew the procedure. I leapt off the tug, ran up to the aircraft to touch her because my one small claim to fame would be that I was the first airman to touch a Victor bomber when it first started in front line service to form 10 Squadron.”

ARRIVAL DATE & SERIAL MYSTERY
Mike’s remembrance of the Victors’ arrival at RAF Cottesmore in 1957 seems at odds with my reference however which gives the first operational Victor bomber squadron, No.10, re-forming at Cottesmore on 1st April 1958 to become operational later on the 15th of that month when taking XA927 on charge, as opposed to XA936 as he has recalled.

This seems to be confirmed by the the inclusion of XA936 on my graphic, which is one of the hand-written a/c entries that I have taken from the original lecture notes. My added ‘Into Service’ info (in blue) to the right of this shows that XA936 did not actually enter service with 10 Sqn until the following month on 28th May 1958, whilst it is XA927 (unfortunately not written on the Lecture Notes) which I have traced as being the first Victor that entered into 10 Sqn service, on 15th April 1958.

VICTOR TRAINING BEGINS
From Feb 1955 ‘A’ Sqn had been based at RAF Gaydon training Valiant crews as part of 232 OCU along with ‘B’ Sqn, for that part of the V-Force training commitment. ‘A’ Sqn was to stand down from its Valiant conversion training in Dec 1956 however in order to convert its instructors onto the Victor B.1 at Radlett, reforming again at Gaydon almost a year later on 28th November 1957.

On this date the Victor was also officially delivered to the RAF to serve with No.232 OCU to facilitate the training of eager RAF crews, while ‘B’ Sqn retained its Valiant training work. By happy coincidence the earliest Victor in the Lecture Notes graphic is that of XA931, which entered service with 232 OCU on the same day that ‘A’ Sqn reformed at Gaydon.

Although underpowered by its Sapphire engines the Victor B.1 entered service after excellent flight trials and following comments after tests at Boscombe Down, with its cockpit area completely re-designed also, to become a superb addition to this world-class V Force triumvirate.

The ‘super-priority’ Handley Page product also equipped Nos 15, 55, and 57 Squadrons. No 10 Sqn was soon followed by its sister unit No.15 while No 57 Sqn at Honington did not open for business until 1st January 1959. No 55 Sqn began operations on 1st September 1960, which was to be the start of a notably long and proud association with this magnificent aircraft.

I have sent my query to Mike and will update on the Forum when I hear back from him, but in the meantime I would like to get the graphic uploaded along with the story, which I hope will be of interest to all Victor and V fans.

And does anyone remember these Victor men of yore?
DUTTON – ROWLANDS – MCDOWELL – SHAW – READMAN – BUNN

CHIEF TECH’s, CREW CHIEF’s & OTHERS BY SID HARDING
I received a very well-qualified reply to the above from V.A. member Sid Harding, ex-Victor Crew Chief and story contributor to the website as follows:

Garry,
The term ‘crew chief’ originates from the USAF and, if my memory of the timescale is correct, was adopted by RAF Bomber Command when the first of the V bomber were introduced in the 1950s. Each V bomber had it’s own SNCO (invariable a Chief Tech) aircraft tradesman (Crew Chief) solely responsible for the maintenance of that particular aircraft and flew with it when it was to land away from it’s base. It was also adopted for other large aircraft that the RAF had added to their inventory around that time. In the 1970′s the name Crew Chief was replaced by the term ASC (Aircraft Servicing Chief) which remained until the V bombers went out of service.

The term/rank Chief Technician (Chief Tech) was a technical rank positioned between Sergeant and Flight Sergeant to meet the many new maintenance requirements and responsibilities that came along with the V force and other new aircraft as the RAF developed new maintenance procedures after the second world war, for example independent checks on flying controls. It was also part of a technician structure offered to technical tradesmen at that time and in general terms still exist today.

It started with Junior Technician (JT), progressing on to Corporal Technician, Senior Technician, Chief Technician and, for the highest level, Master Technician which equated to Warrant Officer. All these rank promotions would result from passing the appropriate exams and performance in all duties to the correct standards. Of the very few tradesmen that rose to the rank of Master Technician many were ex crew chiefs. The encouragement to go down that technical path was; automatic promotion after set periods and better pay. These tradesmen were easily identified as their stripes were upside down, the junior technician being a single stripe.

However, in the mid 1960′s the upside down stripe was slowly being removed and reverted to conventional design and, besides the chief technician rank, it was difficult to recognise the technical personnel from those who took the standard command route, the junior technician’s single stripe was replaced by a 4 bladed prop, one more than a SAC which had one. The junior technicians at that time (including myself) all hung their old stripe up over the crew-room tea bars with the following words “Here we hang till we drop, cast aside for the 4 bladed prop”.

Sorry I cannot think of any small stories or comments just now but will put my mind to it tonight and tomorrow to see what I can come up with. If I find something I will email it straight to you.