VALIANT IN SERVICE
The Valiant nuclear bomber was the first aircraft used by the RAF as an in-flight refuelling tanker. The details of this and other developments with this V-bomber were detailed in the July 29, 1960 issue of ‘The Aeroplane and Astronautics’
FOR more than a year now, No. 214 Squadron has occupied a unique place in the R.A.F. as the Service's first – and to date only – Squadron of flight-refuelling tankers. Reformed at Marham in 1956 with Vickers Valiants, No. 214 Squadron (Wg. Cdr. P. G. Hill) began the operational development of flight refuelling in March, 1958, using the B(K) Mk. 1 version of the Valiant, which is a convertible tanker/bomber. Flight Refuelling Ltd. drogue equipment is carried in the bomb-bay, and all these aircraft also have probes to receive fuel. Trials were completed during the year and the Squadron has since been employed on operational duties using in-flight fuelling, in the course of which a number of notable flights have been made. These, as the tabulation shows, include the greatest distance ever covered by an aircraft of the R.A.F. on a single mission (8,500 miles) and, on the same occasion, the longest sortie by an R.A.F. jet aircraft.
The Valiant is at present t…
