Turned up at 0600 to take over the fully combat-prepared Vulcan; make sure all the systems were working (switch on, then off !) before returning to the fantastic Ops feeder for full fry-up. We were now at Readiness 15 (crew room to airborne in 15 minutes). Three large meals later, plus five games of Uckers, six rounds of bridge and some target study, retired to bed at about 11pm in our luxurious standby caravan (10ft x 6 ft cubical) in full flying kit, listening to the pouring rain/sleet/wind rattling onto the thin corrugated roof! Just nodding off when the Klaxon sounds. “Exercise EDAM, this is the Bomber Controller: Exercise Scramble.”

Crikey, that's different! It's always go to Readiness 5 (strap in the aircraft) or Readiness 2 (start engines) before getting the stand-down and returning to Ops. So climb into the plugged-in van, check all-aboard and race through the sleet to the ORP, neck and neck with the crews from our 101 and 50 squadron rivals. Arrive at aircraft and check nothing parked behind (don't want to repeat the Mini blown into field incident!). Say quick hello to the Crew Chief, make sure he is clear of the barbed wire (don't want to repeat the wire blown round the chief's neck incident) and climb into pilot’s ejector seat. No longer starting the engines from the outside due to various ‘incidents'!


Rapid start No1 engine, from compressed air bottle, straight up to 90% and cross-feed start the other 3 engines at the same time as strapping in, removing the seat pins and press starting the powered flying control units whilst turning onto the runway.

Quick look around, green from the caravan, and full power. Four Olympus 301s (84000 lbs thrust - no reduced thrust take offs in those days!) sped us into the gloom, 15 seconds behind 101’s aircraft (drat - how did they do it!). Forty seconds later, at about 150 knots, with the ASI all over the place due to wake turbulence from the preceding aircraft, airborne!

Into the snow, anti-icing on, a few minutes later cruising above the murk at 45,000 ft! Everything seemed to be working OK, so start 3-hour limited nav stage to use up fuel before RTB; just getting back in with the cloud base around 200 ft .

Hope that the bomber controller was pleased with his exercise, We never heard! But we did hear that the first aircraft took off on 3 engines! Only the Vulcan could do that!