Vickers VC10 Skybolt Vengeance...........Armagheddon comes in a lovely shape!

[General Melchet]

Hi everyone, my latest offering comes in the form of an early proposal for a nuclear missile equipped variant of the ubiquitous VC10, one of several such interesting proposals submitted by the Vickers Corporation and BAC in the early sixties. A bit of background for those interested. The VC10 was seriously looked at for adaption to a variety of roles including ballistic missile carrier, maritime and electronic recon, AEW, and even the worlds largest interceptor!!!.To meet these roles Vickers and BAC proposed using multi role modular aircraft with interchangable noses and fuselages, totally unique at the time. These nuclear equipped aircraft were to have worked alongside then gradually have replaced the V-Bombers in time.
This version the ALBM carrier was based on the Type 1106 variant ,(as used by Transport Command) but had the standard 1100 airliner fuselage matched with the Super's 1150 wings (to take the weight of the Skybolts and which had a more appropriate Mach rating) and uprated Conway Co.43 engines.The nose was heavily re profiled to encase the NBS and H2S systems and tanks were fitted to the extreme wing tips. Up to eight Skybolts could be carried pushing the total payload up to a massive 40,000lbs, this is the main reason that I added a new beefier undercarriage with a lower pressure footprint enabling it to be flown from more RAF airfields.There was also mention of fitting reheat to the Conways, RATO packs or even replacing them altogether with Bristol BS.81 turbofans of 36,000 lbs thrust each.

An impressive way of looking at the strike potential would be to say that it would take 72 Vulcans and 32 Victors to carry a credable deterrent whereas only 42 VC10's would have been needed to do the same job!

Weapons to have been carried were 8 (or more usually 4) Douglas Skybolts, 4 Z.89's or 6 Bristol X.12's....a truely frightening war load!!!  

Reference was mainly supplied by Chris Gibson and his wonderful book, ''Vickers VC10, AEW, Pofflers and other unbuilt variants' and is a goldmine of information, (hopefully allowing other models to be built in time!),



The model is basically a hybrid of parts namely Airfix fuselage and tail, Welsh models Super VC10 wings, Braz Super engines, Zvezda TU 160 Blackjack undercarriage and lots of good old fine Milliput and requisite elbow grease!. The fuselage was built as per the kit but with the windows filled and Milliput  used to recontour the nose to make it more Nimrod like and match the 1/144th drawings I had made for the build. The wings were then added from the WM vac kit and wingtip pods added from the spares bin, new pe wings fences were added from the two six set then the excellent Braz Super|VC10 CO 43 engines were fitted,(vastly superior to the Airfix efforts!!), The Skybolts came from the old Crown B52 kit and pylons were scratchbuilt again according to plans, next the undercarriage from the Blackjack kit was cut down and adapted to fit before finishing off with a mix of decals using the Two Six Gulf Air set, Freightdogs Anti nuclear markings and stencils and bits from the spares bin again. Finished off in Tamiya white and Vallejo satin clear the model was given a light wash of Promodeller dirt and burnt umber oil paint thinned with white spirit.Finally Little Cars red and clear lenses were added again as per drawings and that completed a fun build of an aircraft that would have been truely impressive had it ever entered service. Mine has been finished as a Wittering based aircraft (139 'Jamaica' squadron circa 1965). The only thing left to be fitted are the pale blue serials ( I've run out!!) which will be XM720 from a cancelled second batch Victor...
There's was a fair bit of conjecture as to what name it it have been given, (the name Poffler was used but as usual this was thought to be a typically obscure project code name to throw any would be spies off the scent!), and after a bit of searching it appears that the name Vigilant would have been quite likely as it continued the 'V' theme of the other V-Bombers in service. Seval drawings of the time showed it in camo scheme but as the Skybolt was designed to be launched at around 40,000 feet I thought the anti flash white more in keeping with the role.

Anyhoo after all that, hope you like it, (a similarly equipped Trident is in the pipeline too for those interested  )....




Cheers all,  

Melchie.....






















































Here along side my earlier BAC Rapier B1, (nuclear equipped Concorde proposal.....next Trident?)...

[Hobbes]

 

That's fantastic! I've been waiting for models based on Gibson's book, so good to see one finished.

I thought the Super wing has a leading edge extension along the inner half of the wing? Or is that just the type 1102/1103?

And was that landing gear arrangement shown in Gibson's book? I can't remember ...

[NARSES2]

Superb 

[deathjester]

No doubt about it, that is utterly brilliant!

[Thorvic]

Superb work Andy, Chris will be pleased when he see's it.

Trident ? (Shoudln't that read Avro 776 ?  )

[Mossie]

Beautiful work Andy!

[TsrJoe]

Superb modelling there Andy certainly looks different as the V Bomber replacement, ill let Chris know bout it too, he'll be chuffed im sure 

[rickshaw]

Nice.  Massive pylons for those Skybolts!  Looks lovely in anti-flash white. 

[AeroplaneDriver]

I suppose that for someone who is into this speculative type of modeling a build like this would seem...oh...what's the word...??


STUNNING?

SPECTACULAR?

INSPIRING?



Beautiful work!!

[Weaver]

Nice one - excellent finish!  

Don't know about "Vigilant": Vickers made an ATGW of that name at about the same time, although if this project was seriously in the offing then they might have reserved it for the plane.

[Taiidantomcat]

Excellent work!! Wonderful model 


I actually got to see a VC-10 fly over a few months ago... last thing I expected to see when I looked up, they are quite rare in the United States 

[Martin H]

I actually got to see a VC-10 fly over a few months ago... last thing I expected to see when I looked up, they are quite rare in the United States 

Their not so common in the UK any more either

[thedarkmaster]

Vc10 

Anti flash white 

VC10 in anti flash white 

[Gondor]

Absolutely fantastic and an inspiration to get to work on the VC-10 I have in the stash.

Gondor

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

He's done it again  ..... Andy, that's just superb..... again !

Ian