V-BOMBERS (MODERN COMBAT AIRCRAFT 11)

The RAF ended World War 2 with a large medium-range bombing fleet which had seen considerable and effective service during the war. However, wartime considerations had led to the continued production of well tried piston-engined types in preference to the development of a jet bomber. Thus Bomber Command's workhorse in the immediate Lancaster postwars years was the Lincoln - an improved and it was only in 1951 that the RAF received its first jet bomber albeit the light Canberra. There was a need, therefore, reinforced by British nuclear weapons development, to produce aircraft for the strategic bombing role. The three companies whose designs received Air Ministry approval were Vickers, A.V. Roe and Handley Page, and the three aircraft that were to carry the British nuclear weapons were the Valiant, Vulcan and Victor - the V-Bombers.

No aircraft enthusiast will need reminding of their first sight of these most photogenic of aircraft. Resplendent in all-white anti-flash finish, swooping low over the countryside, they cast a distinctive shadow, and none more so than the awesome delta-winged Vulcan. These aircraft took the RAF into the jet age, and the quality of the designs is evinced today by the continued service of the Victor and Vulcan.

In the eleventh of lan Allan's highly successful 'Modern Combat Aircraft' series, Robert Jackson charts the history of the V-Force, and in so doing gives an insight into the Bomber Command and its successor Strike Command, with chapters on the V-Bombers' operational procedures and the British Blue Steel stand-off missile.

This book was first published in 1981 and statements made then were current. Many of these may well have been overtaken by subsequent events.