Operations Black Buck 1 to Black Buck 7 were seven extremely long-range airstrikes conducted during the 1982 Falklands War by Royal Air Force (RAF) Vulcan bombers of the RAF Waddington Wing, comprising aircraft from Nos. 44, 50 and 101 Squadrons, against Argentine positions in the Falkland Islands. Five of the missions completed attacks. The objective of the missions was to attack Port Stanley Airport and its associated defences. The raids, at almost 6,600 nautical miles (7,600 mi; 12,200 km) and 16 hours for the round trip, were the longest-ranged bombing raids in history at that time.
The Operation Black Buck raids were staged from RAF Ascension Island, close to the Equator. The Vulcan was designed for medium-range missions in Europe and lacked the range to fly to the Falklands without refuelling several times. The RAF's tanker planes were mostly converted Handley Page Victor bombers with similar range, so they too had to be refuelled in the air. A total of eleven tankers were required for two Vulcans (one primary and one reserve), a daunting logistical effort as all aircraft had to use the same runway.
The Vulcans carried either twenty-one 1,000-pound (450 kg) bombs internally or two or four Shrike anti-radar missiles externally. Of the five Black Buck raids flown to completion, three were against Stanley Airfield's runway and operational facilities, while the other two were anti-radar missions using Shrike missiles against a Westinghouse AN/TPS-43 long-range 3D radar in the Port Stanley area. Shrikes hit two of the less valuable and rapidly replaced secondary fire control radars, causing some casualties among the Argentine crews. One Vulcan was almost lost when a breakdown of its refueling system forced it to land in Brazil.
The raids did minimal damage to the runway and damage to radars was quickly repaired. A single crater was produced on the runway, rendering it impossible for the airfield to be used by fast jets. Argentine ground crew repaired the runway within twenty-four hours, to a level of quality suitable for C-130 Hercules transports. The British were aware that the runway remained in use. It has been suggested that the Black Buck raids were undertaken by the RAF because the British armed forces had been cut in the late 1970s and the RAF may have desired a greater role in the conflict to prevent further cuts.
Background
During the early 1980s, British defence planning was focused on the Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, at six-monthly intervals the Defence chiefs reviewed other possible areas of conflict around the globe, including the Falkland Islands. The consensus was that they were indefensible. The nearest airfield usable for operations was on Ascension Island, a British territory in the South Atlantic not far from the equator with a single 10,000-foot (3,000 m) runway at Wideawake airfield that lay 3,700 nautical miles (4,300 mi; 6,900 km) from the UK and 3,300 nautical miles (3,800 mi; 6,100 km) from the Falklands. Without aircraft able to cover the long distance, the Royal Air Force (RAF) could not envisage carrying out operations in the South Atlantic. Activities in the South Atlantic would be carried out by the Royal Navy and the British Army, with the RAF's role restricted to the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft and logistic support of the base at Ascension by Vickers VC10 and Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport aircraft.
Argentine codes had been broken, and in March 1982 intelligence warnings about possible Argentine activity in the South Atlantic accumulated. The RAF began examining whether it was possible to carry out long-range operations with Avro Vulcan bombers using aerial refuelling. In 1961, a Vulcan had flown non-stop from the UK to RAAF Base Richmond near Sydney in Australia, a much greater distance, but that was with pre-positioned aerial tankers along the route, which would not be possible flying from Ascension. All consideration at this point was about how it could be done; no targets were identified in the Falklands or Argentina.
After Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands on 2 April 1982, the British Government resolved to recapture them.
Victor tankers
Long-range operations were entirely dependent upon the RAF's fleet of Handley Page Victor K2 tankers. Originally 34 Victors had been built as bombers; 24 had subsequently been converted to tankers. One had been lost in an accident at RAF Marham on 28 September 1976, leaving the RAF with a force of just 23. These were the only tankers in British service in April 1982; nine VC10s were in the process of being converted to tankers, but conversion of the first was not completed until 22 June. Of these, twelve were assigned to No. 55 Squadron and eleven to No. 57 Squadron.
The tanker crews were well-trained for their wartime role, as their peacetime role involved refuelling fighters scrambled in response to incursions into British airspace, usually by bombers from the Soviet Union at a rate of five per week. However, long-range flights over the unfamiliar South Atlantic Ocean necessitated upgrades to the Victors' navigational equipment, notably the installation of the Delco Carousel inertial navigation system and the Omega navigation system. The tankers were themselves capable of being refuelled in flight, which meant that it was possible to set up relays of aircraft.
The first five Victors deployed to Ascension on 18 April, followed by four more the following day. Another six deployed by the end of the month, bringing the Victor tanker force to fourteen, since one had returned to Marham on 26 April. Each was refuelled by another Victor before leaving UK airspace. While the Victors deployed to Ascension, their normal refuelling mission in the air was undertaken by United States Air Force Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers. The station commander at Marham, Group Captain J. S. B. Price, became the senior RAF officer at Ascension. Wing Commander D. W. Maurice-Jones assumed command of the Victor detachment at Ascension until 22 April, when he was relieved by Wing Commander A. W. Bowman, the commander of No. 57 Squadron.
Initial long-range operations by the RAF involved the use of Victor aircraft for reconnaissance of the region surrounding South Georgia Island in support of Operation Paraquet, the recapture of South Georgia. At 0400Z on 20 April, a Victor piloted by Squadron Leader J. G. Elliott, took off from Ascension, accompanied by four supporting tankers to supply fuel for the outbound journey. Another flight of four tankers supplied fuel for the return journey. Two more reconnaissance missions to the South Georgia area were carried out on 22–23 April and on 24–25 April. These missions demonstrated the capability of the Victor tanker fleet, flying out of Ascension, to support operations in the South Atlantic.
Vulcan bombers
The Vulcan was the last of the British V bombers in operational use for bombing, but by March 1982 there were only three squadrons remaining, Nos. 44, 50 and 101 Squadrons RAF. All three were scheduled to be disbanded by 1 July 1982. They were based at RAF Waddington in the UK and assigned to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for nuclear operations; neither aerial refuelling nor conventional bombing had been practised for several years. A request from Rear Admiral Sandy Woodward, the commander of the British aircraft carrier group heading south, on 11 April for recommendations for targets to attack in the Falkland Islands led to reconsideration of the possibility of attacks using Vulcans. Options for attacks on airfields and ports on the Argentine mainland were discarded as politically provocative and unlikely to produce worthwhile results. The Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Beetham argued that the Vulcan threat would cause the Argentines to retain fighters in the north of Argentina.
Thinking coalesced on a raid on Port Stanley Airport. Whether it would be worth the effort was debated. Beetham initially proposed an attack in which a single Vulcan would drop seven 1,000-pound (450 kg) bombs. This light bomb load would keep the refuelling requirements down to a minimum. However, tests conducted at the Garvie Island bombing range indicated that seven bombs would not be enough, but a full load of twenty-one would have a 90 per cent probability of putting one crater in the runway, with a 75 per cent chance of two craters. An attack was also expected to do damage to the dispersal areas and aircraft parked nearby. To minimise the danger from anti-aircraft guns and surface-to-air missiles, the raids would be carried out at night, preferably in bad weather. Damage to the surrounding area, possibly including parked aircraft, would make the raid worthwhile. While the Chiefs of Staff Committee were convinced that the operation was feasible and stood a good chance of success, the civilians at the Ministry of Defence were not so certain, and there were political implications to using the base at Ascension for offensive purposes, as Wideawake was technically a USAF base. The United States Department of State was consulted, and affirmed that it had no objection. Authority to proceed with the operation, codenamed Black Buck, was given by the War Cabinet on 27 April.
The most controversial part of the plan was the involvement of Sea Harriers from Woodward's task force. One of the reasons for the use of the Vulcans was to conserve Sea Harrier resources for the air defence of the naval forces, but the plan required them to conduct a daylight photo reconnaissance sortie over the airfield for the purpose of damage assessment. If they had to be risked, then there were political advantages in using them to carry out the attack on the airport instead. Rear Admiral Derek Reffell proposed that Harriers be used to suppress the airfield radars prior to the Vulcan attack in addition to conducting the post-attack photo reconnaissance. On 29 April, Woodward was informed that the Black Buck raid would occur at 0700Z, and that he was to arrange for the photo reconnaissance to take place as soon as possible afterwards. Woodward signalled that if the photo reconnaissance was essential to Black Buck, then his recommendation was that Black Buck should be cancelled. The following day he was informed that Black Buck had been approved, and that the photo reconnaissance was required not just for damage assessment, but to refute Argentine allegations of indiscriminate bombing.
Vulcans were selected based upon their engines; only those with the more powerful Bristol Olympus 301 engines were considered suitable. Six aircraft were selected: two each from Nos. 44, 50 and 101 Squadrons. In the event, one was not used. Five crews were chosen, one each from Nos. 44 and 101 Squadrons, two from No. 50 Squadron, and one from the recently disbanded No. 9 Squadron. An air-to-air instructor from the operational conversion unit responsible for training personnel to operate Victor tankers was added to each Vulcan crew during operational missions; this officer was responsible for supervising the refuelling contacts.
One of the most challenging tasks was reinstating the aerial refuelling system, which had been blocked off. This involved replacing the 4-inch (100 mm) non-return valves. Twenty replacements were located on a shelf at RAF Stafford. The five aircraft were fitted with the Carousel inertial navigation system. AN/ALQ-101 electronic countermeasure pods from Blackburn Buccaneer aircraft at RAF Honington were fitted to the wings of the Vulcans on improvised pylons, using the attachment points originally intended for the Skybolt missile. The undersides of the aircraft were painted Dark Sea Grey.
While the Vulcans were capable of carrying conventional munitions, this had not been done for a long time. To carry twenty-one bombs, the Vulcan required three sets of bomb carriers, each of which held seven bombs. Their release was controlled by a panel at the navigator's station, known as a 90-way, that monitored the electrical connections to each bomb, and was said to provide 90 different sequences for releasing the 1,000-pound bombs. None of the Vulcans at Waddington were fitted with the bomb racks or the 90-way. A search of the supply dumps at Waddington and RAF Scampton located the 90-way panels, which were fitted and tested, but finding enough septuple bomb carriers proved harder, and at least nine were required. Someone remembered that some had been sold to a scrapyard in Newark-on-Trent, and they were retrieved from there. Locating sufficient bombs also proved difficult, and only 167 could be located. Some had cast bomb cases rather than machined ones, which was problematic as they tended to shatter, and this mission required bombs that would penetrate into the ground. Training of crews in conventional bombing and in-flight refuelling was carried out from 14 to 17 April, when Military Air Traffic Controllers from the Military Area Service (M.A.S.) suite at London Terminal Control Centre in West Drayton, Middlesex, took the Vulcan bombers and Victor tankers 250 miles off Land's End in the Atlantic Ocean, where the vast majority of their aerial refuelling training was completed, always at night.
The first two Vulcans, commanded by Squadron Leader John Reeve, and Flight Lieutenant Martin Withers, left Waddington at 0900Z on 29 April and arrived at Wideawake at 1800Z after a non-stop nine-hour flight during which they were twice refuelled by Victor tankers. Two other Vulcans subsequently deployed to Wideawake: one commanded by Squadron Leader Alastair Montgomery arrived on 14 May, and another, commanded by Squadron Leader Neil McDougall, on 27 May. It carried out trials with the Martel anti-radar missile before being equipped with the Shrike missile.