Black Buck One

Black Buck One was the name given to the most daring bombing mission to ever be carried out by and certainly the longest in terms of distance. After the Argentinian military had invaded the British run Falkland Islands in April 1982 the Royal Navy responded by assembling a Task Force of Naval and civilian ships to make the 8,000-mile journey down to the South Atlantic Islands, but what could the RAF do? Tactically, taking out the runway at Port Stanley airfield now occupied by the Argentinian Air Force would be the prime target but how?

I took this picture at Farnborough in 2012. Vulcan XH588 had been a crowd funded restoration that took many years to get back into the air. Sadly, she was retired from flight at the end of 2015.

The only long-range bomber we had was the then soon to be retired Vulcan, which had been used as our main nuclear deterrent during the Cold War, but it did not have the range to get to the Falklands. The distance could be halved if the RAF could use Wideawake Airfield on Ascension Island, and while the Island is governed by the UK the Airfield was operated by the US military, NASA and Pan Am. The US did not want to be seen to be taking sides but did thankfully, grant the RAF access to the runway.

The RAF had not refuelled large jets for 20 years prior to the Falkland bombing mission.

Even at 3900 miles, the Vulcan would have to be refuelled many times to reach its target and a fleet of aging Victor bombers converted to in-flight takers would have to be used. Refuelling large aircraft mid-air like these had not been done for twenty years and the RAF only had one pilot left who had ever done it, so crews in the UK were sent up time and time again to practice this dangerous procedure. While this was going on engineers were converting two Vulcan B2’s to take 20 one-thousand-pound bombs for the mission. The RAF had for years been taking part in War Games in the US where the Vulcan’s low-level high-speed capabilities and bombing accuracy had become legendary. By using some of the top crews from these missions, this would hopefully guarantee success, but the planes still needed to get down there.

The temporary home of the Vulcan bombers and Victor tanker fleet in May 1982, Ascension Island. Wideawake, the airfield can be seen on the right of this picture.

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An intricate plan was made where Victors refuelled other Victors so that the tankers could get to the head of the queue to feed the single Vulcan for its long journey South. On the evening before the mission two Vulcans with bomb bays filled with their deadly cargo took off from Wideawake with only one to make the full trip, the other being a reserve aircraft. A good move, as shortly after the bombers with their escort of Victor tankers took off the lead Vulcan had an issue and had to make a return to Ascension. The journey down was also not with incident with refuelling being taking during a lightning storm where just one spark would have been catastrophic for both the bomber and tanker, and on the final fill-up both the Bomber and Tanker worked out that they might not have enough fuel to make it back.

Victors refuelled Victors until there was only one left to feed the Vulcan its final top up on its 3900-mile trip to the Falklands. It was an audacious plan.

In those days there was no Satellite Navigation to find your target, just old-fashioned plotting on maps and just a few degrees out at the start could been that the plane could have been 100’s of miles out and they would never find their target. As the aircraft made its final low-level run avoiding radar detection before dawn but still under cover of darkness it rose quickly to get a radar fix and there in front of them was Port Stanley airport. This manoeuvre would have briefly showed up on the Argentines defence radar, but luckily was disregarded and the bomber made its run undetected, leaving a trail of 1000 pound bombs across the airfield.

The result, as you can see, was at least one bomb hit the runway at Port Stanley. Although repaired quickly, it stopped the Argentines from using fast jets like their Mirages from the airfield.

The sky then lit up deadly anti-aircraft fire which included deadly guided missile batteries, the Vulcan evaded this and made a safe journey back to Ascension. While only one bomb made a direct hit on the runway itself, and was repaired quickly, the main damage was done by showing the Argentine military that the British was serious about reclaiming the Falklands and of course history shows they did.