Falklands40: The Black Buck Raids

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2022

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Falkland Islands lie 8000 miles from Britain making the Falklands War a particularly tricky one to fight; it required some seriously innovative thinking. No story from the Falklands better tells the story of that innovation than Operation Blackbuck which ran from the 30th of April 1982 to the end of the war. British bombers flew 4000 miles from the Southern Atlantic base at Ascension Island to the Falklands to destroy the Argentine runaway at Port Stanley. But there was a huge hurdle; Vulcan bombers couldn't manage that distance on one tank of fuel. Thousands of feet above the Atlantic in complete radio silence, the RAF crews had to engage in mid-flight refuelling, a particularly delicate dangerous process in which one aircraft feeds fuel to another while maintaining the exact same high speed, altitude and bearings without crashing into one another.

Join Dan on a trip to the Midlands Royal Airforce Museum at Cosford where he meets Dr Peter Johnston to tell the story of the Black Buck Raids- the longest bombing mission in history as well as stories of the RAF in the Falklands War from inside the famous Bravo November Chinook helicopter.

You can visit RAF Cosford. Find more information here.

Produced by Mariana Des Forges

Mixed and Mastered by Dougal Patmore

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is sponsored by Audible, where you can now stream the new series of that brilliant Stephen Fry's
0:06.7	Secrets of podcast. It peaks behind the curtain of the 1920s this time. The life and times of the flappers,
0:14.1	police women, radio, the movies, jazz, the British sense of humour,
0:20.3	censorship and the secrets and lies, the financial crash. This is another installment of Stephen Fry that listeners love.
0:27.7	There are some brilliant stories in here, all told in a very Stephen Fry type of way. You're going to love it.
0:32.7	Listen now, subscription required, see audible.co.uk for terms.
0:37.7	Hi everyone, welcome down to this history. I am now sitting in one of the most important
0:43.7	seats in British aviation history. I've seen the pilot seat of Bravo November. It's the name given to the Chinook helicopter
0:53.7	that served in the early 80s, 40 years ago in the Falklands War. It was the only Chinook that survived the disastrous
1:02.7	loss of the ship Atlantic conveyor that was taking the Chinooks, the helicopters and much other equipment
1:07.7	besides down at the Falklands. That was sunk, destroyed by the Argentinians. But this one, Bravo November,
1:13.7	survived. It played a key role in the Falklands War. It then went on to serve in every other campaign
1:20.7	and humanitarian mission virtually that Britain has performed since and ended up ferrying people,
1:27.7	supplies and casualties in Afghanistan. It is a huge excitement on it to be in Bravo November.
1:33.7	It's just been delivered to the brilliant RAF Cosford, the RAF Museum in the Midlands.
1:39.7	We shall remember from previous visits that the podcast has made, for example, when we were
1:43.7	looking at the Handenbaum out, which is being restored here, that's flown by John Watts' father.
1:48.7	You can go back on History.TV and check out that remarkable episode.
1:52.7	I'm here today because it's the 40th anniversary of the Falklands War at the moment. I'm meeting a friend of the podcast,
1:57.7	legendary historian, curator and broadcaster, Dr Peter Johnston.
2:02.7	You heard him before at the National Army Museum, but he's now head of collections of research at RAF Cosford.
2:08.7	We'll be talking about the RAF, Trin Falklands War. We've done podcasts, focusing on the Navy,
	...

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