Supersonic Victors - Tony Cunnane's Afterthoughts

Written on 18 August 2008

Today is the 55th Anniversary of my arrival at RAF Cardington at the start of my Royal Air Force service. The main story of that day in 1953 is told here.

Looking back at my diaries I can see that on or about that very date in August 1953, Victor WB771, the RAF’s newest V-Bomber, made its very first public appearance when it took off from the factory at Radlett in Hertfordshire. About a month later the aircraft made its first proper public appearance when it performed at the Farnborough Air Show. If anyone had told me then, as I wandered with other new and equally apprehensive recruits around RAF Cardington, that I would be the Officer Commanding  the Victor Standardisation Unit one day, responsible for the standards and proficiency of all Victor aircrew, I would not have believed them.

I see from the Internet something that I did not know in 1953. On a test flight of the new Victor with test pilot Johnny Allam at the controls, Allam accidentally exceeded Mach 1 in a shallow dive on 1 June 1957, making it the largest aircraft up to that time to exceed the speed of sound. I can’t believe a test pilot would ‘accidentally’ exceed the speed of sound. I know from my own experience of exceeding Mach 1 in a Victor almost exactly to the day 14 years later that the clean Victor was very capable of slipping through the sound barrier. While my event was the result of a lapse of concentration by a new and inexperienced captain, Test Pilot Allam would surely not have made such a mistake. You can read about my inadvertent  excursion into supersonic flight in a Victor overhead Paris here.