Methuselah Unleashed - RAF Vickers Valiant B.3

[CammNut]

When Russia looked certain to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses, NATO was forced into action. The Alliance launched massive air attacks on Russian supply lines in an effort to cut off its frontline forces. The Royal Air Force's long-serving Valiant B.3 bombers were called into battle, launching cruise missile attacks against drone factories deep inside Russia.

In the real world, the Vickers Valiant B.1 was the first of the UK's trio of V-bombers to become operational, in 1955, the most conventional and lowest risk of the three designs. The Avro Vulcan followed in 1956 and the Handley Page Victor in 1958.

One of the three Valiant prototypes was built as the B.2 version. This was intended to serve as a pathfinder aircraft, flying at low level to mark targets for the main bomber force. To enable the Valiant to fly at low level, the B.2 had a strengthened airframe. Elimination of the main landing gear bays allowed an uninterrupted wing box, strengthening the structure and increasing internal fuel capacity. The B.2 also had a longer fuselage, providing more room for avionics. Rolls-Royce Conway turbofans replaced the original Avon turbojets.

The prototype B.2 first flew in 1953, but the UK decided to cancel the program because the World War 2 pathfinder concept was deemed obsolete in the nuclear era. Then a complete change in the role of the V-bomber came about in 1963, when it became clear that without a long-range stand-off missile any attack would have to be at low level under the radar. U.S. cancellation of the Skybolt missile left the UK without such a missile.

In the real world, all three V-bomber fleets switched to the low-level nuclear strike role but by 1964 it was discovered the Valiant B.1 was suffering fatigue from the additional stresses and the aircraft was retired.

In whiffworld, time can become compressed, and the decision to switch to low-altitude attacks came while the Valiant B.2 was still in development. They continued to test the prototype and found it excelled at low-level flight (which in reality it did, being superior in performance to either of the other two V-bombers).

When the change in the role of the V-bombers came about in 1963, the Vulcan was upgraded for low-level flight, the Victor was retired and the Valiant B.2 secured a new lease on life.

After retirement of the Vulcan in the early 1980s, the RAF decided to keep the more operationally flexible Valiant in service in the conventional strike role and launched a major upgrade program to extend its life. This included new avionics and replacing the Conways with Rolls-Royce Tay medium-bypass turbofans to increase payload and range.

In the early 2000s, the Valiant B.3s were upgraded again to act as launch platforms for the MBDA Storm Shadow standoff cruise missile. With new underwing pylons the aircraft could carry a total of 12 missiles.


This build was inspired by the U.S. Air Force's Boeing B-52 bomber, which first flew in 1952, was last delivered in 1962 and remains in frontline service in 2025, with a re-engining planned. The model is based on MikroMir's 1/144 Valiant B.1, modified with Aircraft in Miniatures' 3D-printed B.2 conversion kit - http://www.aim72.co.uk/page163.html. Missiles are from Pit Road.


The B-2 conversion inserts a fuselage plug forward of the wing and new main landing gear with the wing pods that house them. I enlarged the air intakes to fit the Tay turbofans and used brass tube for the slightly enlarged jetpipes. The missile pylons were scratched and attached to the existing Valiant wing pylons (much beefing up assumed), Fintop RWR antenna fairing was added.



Reworking of the intakes to enlarge them for the higher-bypass Tays was the biggest task (hours spent over many days). To show the difference, here is the finished B.3 alongside my Corgi B.1 for comparison.



The sharp-eyed among you will have noted that the three forward missiles on each pylon are not the same as the three rear missiles. I did not have enough Storm Shadows, so the rear ones are KEPDs - Germany's equivalent. So in whiffword, this is a multinational "NATO loadout".

[PR19_Kit]

Amazing, I LOVE it! 

And the backstory too, very contemporary.   

[kerick]

Awesome! Love it!

[McColm]

Well done 

[NARSES2]

That's terrific   

[Weaver]

That's excellent, well done!   I can only imagine what a pain it was doing those intakes, but they came out looking great.

The mixed load of Storm Shadows and KEPDs can be explained by wartime supply problems. We've already seen odd, sub-optimal weapon combos in the real-life war. Who'd have ever thought they'd see HARMs on a MiG-29, or a British ATV firing Russian AAMs as SAMs?

I've always thought it was credible that the switch to low-level bombing could have happened earlier enough to save the Valiant B.2. The first British studies into low-level high-speed bombers were conducted in 1954(-ish?) but didn't result in any hardware since one of the conclusions was that the state of nav/attack avionics wasn't yet good enough to enable them. A committment to the B.2 could have seen money thrown at the avionics issue sooner in order to support it, perhaps resulting in multiple early-years refits as in-service aircraft were retrofitted to the latest avionics standard as it became available.

Fundamentally, the Valiants didn't start cracking because of the switch to low-level work, that just revealed the problem and hastened the process. They cracked because of the new alloy they were made of which turned out to have an uncomfortably low stress life. One spare wing set that had never flown an hour cracked whilst hanging on a rack in the factory! They'd have cracked however they were flown: the switch to low-level work just moved the crisis from, say, 1970 to 1965. This is why the whole fleet had to be scrapped, instead of some airframes being kept in service as tankers, high-level recce or research aircraft.

If they'd committed to the B.2, the alloy problem would have been revealed earlier, hopefully during prototype test flying (probably by some fatal crashes, unfortunately), and production aircraft could have switched to something more durable, and possibly been over-re-engineered as a reaction, resulting in the long life featured in your back story.

[zenrat]

 

[CammNut]

Thanks folks. I have always thought that the B.2 prototype - the famous Black Bomber - was a good-looking aeroplane and I had the AIM conversion kit on pre-order alert with Hannants for years!

And thanks, Weaver, for the insights!

[The Rat]

My gob is officially smacked!