The illustrious VC-10, crucial for the Falklands retires from service in early 2013

Monday, July 9th 2012 - 05:23 UTC

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The illustrious VC-10, flown by 101 Squadron based at RAF Brize Norton, made its final air show appearance at the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) before it retires from Service early in 2013. Read full article

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Conor
Sad to see the old crates go but the new Airbus A330 certainly is a superb replacement.
Jul 09th, 2012 - 07:33 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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mickey5hins
Airbus Voyager
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai8SZQWe5tU
Jul 09th, 2012 - 11:02 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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briton
it will be replaced by a better one,
so no need for argies to cheer .
Jul 09th, 2012 - 02:09 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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Martin Woodhead
The airbus is a complete curates egg of a pfi deal. Still better than a vc10
Jul 09th, 2012 - 03:39 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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Pete Bog
Heard it will actually be more expensive to lease than it would be to buy but if its capability is good then this is a positive.
Jul 09th, 2012 - 05:47 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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briton
we could do with a few more .
Jul 09th, 2012 - 11:03 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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Argie
3. briton

Who cheers?

Even if Britain's war forces are half of what they were in the Napoleonic wars, they're still thousandfold of what our plastic Queen can gather to stop Martin Garcians to invade Buenos Ayres...

Beautiful aircraft the VC-10, but if there was anything illustrious to help Britain in the F.I. War was the US top-knotch hardware and electronics, and the allegiance with our Chilean loving brothers.
(Don't forget that it was a Chilean tugboat that rescued Shackleton's crew from Elephant Island)

Down in Patagonia, in Puerto Lobos (San Matias Gulf), apparently undetected by radars (of which there are none near nor far) and Argentine 'authorities' (are there any?) a long airfield, of unknown (?) origin can be seen if you can set the Google Earth right.

There's local hearsay going on that this airfield is illustriously used by Tavistock with a Dassault Falcon 900, formerly registered as N158JA, and currently repainted and re-registered as D-AWKG, despite their 2005 prohibition to continue their passenger/cargo operations between Argentina and a group of islands located at about 51° 45' S and 59° 00' W.

Illustrious bollocks we have in our Government and they will stay for some 4 years... If it changes for good - which I doubt - then I hope that we may reinvent the good commercial relationship and even personal acquantainces we used to have with our islands' neighbours. As for the latter, I never lost mine.

Cheers!
Jul 10th, 2012 - 03:13 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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briton
We need a plane, big enough and powerful enough, to lift and carry a navy ship of at least 10,000 tons, all the way to the Falklands and back, from ascension island
In say 12 hours,

Is it poss we may ask.
.
Jul 10th, 2012 - 10:12 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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Argie
8 briton U must be joking. Carry a navy ship? To Ascension? Oh, come off it! It's a fleeting volcanic rock emerging in the middle of nowhere, with no runway nor a port to shelter a yacht, and not over 200 poor outcasts living on there...

Forget Ascension and Tristan d'Acunha, there's no fun in either. Stick rather to The Globe or the RAF's Casino, or come instead to the continent to, say, the Welsh Colony in Patagonia, (very much closer to the F.Is.) where you'll find 4th to nth generation britons of either sex that barely speak English, but Welsh or Spanish, and know how to mix a good drink and make friends. Rest assured that no radar will pick your plane coming or leaving, no matter its size. On the other hand, a RN ship will be too obvious, especially if it is not manned by Koreans to pose as fishermen...

Be good...
Jul 11th, 2012 - 07:56 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
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Rufus
@8 Briton

Think you'd struggle to find a plane that big, just looking at the An-225 which is a serious BUFF of a plane has a payload capacity of 250,000 kg (i.e. 250 metric tons), so the best that they could do in terms of weight is an Archer class patrol boat.
And that's assuming that you can pack it in, somehow I don't think it would work as well on a glorified roofrack as the Buran orbiter that the An-225 was designed to transport.
Jul 12th, 2012 - 11:32 am - Link - Report abuse 0
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