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Victor crew seats


Paul A H

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Quick question - Airfix's new Victor has four seats for the crew area aft of the fight deck, but most of the photos I have found show only the rear three seats fitted. Was the foremost seat, positioned almost between the two ejector seats, a jump seat that could be removed? Just trying to find out what the correct configuration would be for a B.2.

 

Thanks

 

Paul

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The sixth seat was mounted on rails fitted in the centre line of the cabin, could move fore & aft from just behind pilots seats to just ahead of the rear mid seats.

It could swivel round and acted as an escape seat, once a toggle was pulled the cushion would inflate under high pressure, and the back rest would spring forwards to assist the crew member out of the door.

Unsure if it was a permanent fixture or not, but it could be withdrawn by pulling a lever which retracted rods in the runner wheels.

 

I think the reason you don't see it in pics is that most shots are taken from that seat position a cramped cockpit.

 

Edit,

This image shows the rails, but not the seat,

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/0c/c5/b7/0cc5b7c314bf6f978eb3b7be44b33060.jpg

This is it,

http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/victor/full/raf97126.jpg

 

Edited by 71chally
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11 hours ago, Julien said:

All the crew seats in the Victor had the inflating cushion to help the crew out of their seats if they were getting pinned in them.

 

Julien

 

And I think I read that the navigators didn't like using them as they thought the inflated seat would pin them against the desk. Or was that the Vulcan?

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I believe the 6th seat was originally fitted to B.1 and B.2 aircraft to enable the crew chief to ride with the aircraft when deployed overseas (the drag chute is so heavy that any extra help repacking would always be welcome!).

 

Whether it stayed on the B.2's I don't know. As Blue Steel aircraft, I can only assume that they would not have required it to be fitted routinely as the aircraft were mainly UK based and would have dispersed within the UK when things got exciting. But that is just me speculating and other than lugging the additional weight around, I can't think why you'd want to remove it or reinstall unless you were feeling particularly vindictive.

 

It wasn't fitted when XL231 was retired as I recall and I think they'd been missing from the tanker fleet for a few years by then.  The seats are very heavy and difficult to hoist up the ladder into a what suddenly feels like a very small flight deck!  That spring assisted seat back is quite violent when it is activated, too.

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The 6th seat was kept in the K2 as well as the B2, and was typically used by the crew chief when flying with the aircraft. It would also be used if the pilots were being flight checked..

 

The seat was removed for Corporate (Falklands war) and replaced with original Omega GPS installation. After the conflict it was reinstalled.

 

XVTonker

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31 minutes ago, xvtonker said:

The seat was removed for Corporate (Falklands war) and replaced with original Omega GPS installation. After the conflict it was reinstalled.

 

XVTonker

 

For complete accuracy, Omega was NOT a GPS system, it was a radio based parabolic navigation system whereby parabolic radio waves intersect to derive position similar to DECCA-Nav or Gee but using fewer beacons and giving world-wide coverage.  The display gave lat/long which could be crossed checked against other systems to give a reasonable position given the distances involved.  It pre-dates GPS.

 

Wikipedia Omega Navigation System page

 

Interestingly one of the beacons is in Argentina which was not switched off during the Falklands War.

 

Sorry for the minor diversion.

Edited by Wez
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20 hours ago, bobgpw said:

 

It wasn't fitted when XL231 was retired as I recall and I think they'd been missing from the tanker fleet for a few years by then.  The seats are very heavy and difficult to hoist up the ladder into a what suddenly feels like a very small flight deck!  That spring assisted seat back is quite violent when it is activated, too.

In line with what XVTonka says, the sixth seat was still fitted to K.2 '190 when it was retired.

 

I used to have one as a modelling chair, and agree with that last comment!

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You know, I think we refitted the Nav Plotters seat in 231 and had to move the 6th seat out of the way to do so.  There was a lot of grunting, cursing and WD40 used in the process and it is nearly 23 years ago now so memory is fallible!

 

There was definitely a seat missing after delivery and as the Victor fleet hadn't used Nav Plotters for a while, I wonder if that was it?  We had it occupied by the time the first high speed runs were undertaken in mid '94.

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Thanks for the detailed replies everyone; much food for thought! I suspect part of the problem is that almost all of the walkaround photographs are of K.2s. Interior shots of in-service Blue Steel carrying Victors are unsuprisingly hard to come by. 

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