Bit of a shame that it missed the runway in the Falklands!! Dont believe everything you see in the press or read, those pictures were doctored. It had to fly above the operating height of the Argy Super Es and missed the runway by a country mile. One of the problems was that one of the Sat Nav datums used at the time WGS84 I think was its name was so out from the reality (Some Islands down there were labelled that they laid up to one and a half miles from their charted position) that they dropped the bombs rather haphazardly.
The Vulcan was sent to the Falklands to appease the hierarchy of the RAF who were in a battle to defend their portion of the defence budget and to justify their existance came up with this plan to bomb the runway at Port Stanley. Now the runway was no more than a compacted layer of peat and damage that was done to the runway was repaired, regardless of severity, within about half an hour by bull dozing more peat into the holes.
The farce so infuriated the CO of HMS Glamorgan a Light Guided Destroyer armed with an anti air guided missile designed at the end of the second world war called sea slug, that he disobeyed orders, encroached on the zone off East Falkland that was the limit of the Super Es operating envelope from the mainland, turned his stern towards Port Stanley, plugged in a geographical reference to simulate an air target with an altitude of zero and unleashed two tons of burning twisted metal, at the end of Port Stanley airport. Bingo, surprised everyone with a direct hit, flattened all the outbuildings and scared the argies shitless.
Lovely plane though, designed to deliver an airborne nuclear missile with no great need for accuracy!
nights by the way)
