Victor Tanker Tales

The menu on the left leads to a selection of stories about my time on Victor Tankers based at RAF Marham in the 1970s. The stories, most of which were written just days after the events they describe, are based on my diaries, cross-checked where possible with those who feature in them! Most of these stories have been published before in various forms, not least in RAF internal flight safety magazines. My thanks to those who have made corrections, including the fellow Victor captain I met in about 1997 in a cafe in a Dales village in North Yorkshire. He nearly fell off his chair when I walked in because he had heard that I had died several years earlier!

Readers of these Tanker Tales who are unfamiliar with the Victor may get the impression from these stories that the aircraft was dangerous to fly but nothing could be further from the truth. I flew several hundred Victor missions and on only a handful of occasions did I have cause to feel worried, but those occasions make the best stories. My crews may not have agreed.