This time, the Argentines kept the TPS-43 off. One missed, but the other caused light damage to the radar.īlack Buck Six came three days later, alongside another Harrier flight. REUTERS/Eduardo Farreīut the Argentines turned on the radar on and off, forcing the Vulcan to loiter for about 30 minutes to get a lock on the target. The military airstrip at Port Stanley after a British air raid in May 1982. The Harriers were meant to be picked up by the TPS-43, ensuring the radar remained online so the anti-radiation missiles could home in on it. The Vulcan carried four Shrikes, and its mission was timed to coincide with a flight of Harriers from the task force's carriers. Black Buck Four, the first mission targeting Argentina's TPS-43 air-defense radar, was canceled five hours after taking off on May 28 because a refueling hose on one of the Victors malfunctioned.īlack Buck Five was launched on May 31. The bombs missed the airfield but wounded several Argentine troops.īlack Buck Three was scheduled for May 13 but canceled because of strong headwinds off Ascension. With the Argentines now alert, the Vulcan had to drop its bombs from a higher altitude to avoid antiaircraft fire. The next day, the RAF learned that only one bomb had made a direct hit, which left behind a massive hole in the runway.īlack Buck Two took place on May 3. The Vulcan then turned for Ascension, trailed by Argentine antiaircraft gunfire. It was picked up by Argentine radar and activated its jamming pod before dropping 21 bombs, 16 of which exploded. The backup Vulcan approached Port Stanley early on May 1. Shortly after takeoff, the lead Vulcan had to return because a seal leak prevented its cabin from pressurizing. PA Images via Getty Imagesīlack Buck One took off from Ascension the night of April 30. The Black Buck raidsĪn Avro Vulcan bomber during a training mission. Most of the calculations about when and how much to refuel were done using a simple pocket calculator. During the roughly 14-hour journey, the bomber and the tankers refueled 14 times, according to the RAF. The RAF also came up with a complex aerial-refueling schedule involving 11 Victors flying in waves to refuel the Vulcan on its outbound and return legs. The map issue was resolved by flipping a Mercator chart of the North Atlantic upside down. The Martels were swapped for US-made AGM-45 Shrikes, which were secretly supplied to the UK. A spare Vulcan also accompanied the main bomber at the outset of the mission in case something went wrong. The probe problems were solved through training and by adding reserve tankers. The RAF also discovered that it had no maps of the South Atlantic. The Martel anti-radiation missile was found to be unreliable. During the drills, refueling probes sometimes broke apart or spilled fuel onto the Vulcan's windscreen. The preparations revealed other problems. Victor tanker aircraft conduct air-to-air refueling. (The normally five-man crews also received an extra member to oversee the in-flight refueling.) The crews, who had no aerial-refueling experience and hadn't done conventional bombing drills in a decade, spent two weeks learning to refuel from tankers and other newly pertinent skills, including how to attack enemy air defenses with anti-radiation missiles. The four Vulcans assigned to the raids were reequipped with refueling probes taken from bombers that were in storage and, in some cases, in museums. As a result, the bombers had their aerial-refueling probes removed. They had also been reassigned from strategic bombing missions with large nuclear weapons to missions against conventional targets, such as military bases, using smaller, tactical nuclear weapons. The Vulcans were introduced in 1956, and many had been retired by the time of the war. The plan was rife with difficulties, starting with the aircraft themselves. An RAF Vulcan bomber at Wideawake Airfield on Ascension Island.
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