The best food (and most) was a BOAC VC-10 flight between New York and Sydney, Australia back in the 70’s. 36 hours (multiple stops) they fed us constantly. For me as a kid it was amazing.

XV105 was one of my favourite airframes to work on when they were in their PROPER Air Support Command white over grey with the blue cheek lines, they looked superb, along with XV106, XR806 and XR809 for a while on the RR flying test bed. I wS also in the breaking team for her which was sad 😩I flew many airtests in these beauties including many sorties when the captain would ‘fly the curve’ so we got some weightless time....(YES that did happen!) lots of stall tests....very stomach churning but great fun. How people can call these ‘noisy’? YES sure they are when MOD GUTTED THEM and took the airliner sound proofing out well DUUUUH! Fully fitted as pax/ multi role aircraft they were whispering giants. That take off howl is incredible a bit reminiscent of the Vulcan. These aircraft had YEARS of life left and could run rings around the crap voyager! Proud to have my initials painted in every tail plane behind the leading edge panels after a servicing we all ‘signed’ the airframe. I just wish they could have kept one flying, they did it for the vulcan and the Conways were a lot less finicky than the Olympus engines! The glorious VC10 was the LAST all British aircraft to leave the RAF I believe, i wish they would have shown more respect for this aircraft that the Queen loved travelling in, leaving one fully fitted out for passengers and in the traditional RAF colours they spent 90% of their life in, the ‘Strike Command White over blue.😢 Farewell Queen of the skies, thank you for the thousands of miles we travelled together, for the many times I re rolled you for a while and our superb trips doing the ‘Chequerboard Turn’ at Kai Tak......., now also sadly gone......but it was BUILT FOR VC10’s short field performance! Bless you 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👍🏻🤟🏻🇬🇧 I am older than you were now a lot of my old RAF buddies are now up ‘Dancing the Skies’ with you now in paradise! Thank you Vickers for the best airliner design ever that they should still be building.🤷🏼‍♂️ I flew air to air sorties when we trialled the Hercules tankers, i was ‘flight photographer’ sat next to the Captain now and then on and orange box getting photos of the probe and drogue hook ups!

Been on many of those flights ✈️, 😉 😜 😘

Thanks Steve for up-loading this; it was truly a great experience for me. Thank you again to RAF Brize Norton and my good friend Michael for organising this flight for me. Andrew Lee

I enjoyed a 8hr Air2Air over the North Sea in 88' whilst serving in Brize Ops, best food i ever had in a VC10K (20 years prior to this video🤓).

That airfield at 7:22 is Halfpenny Green/Wolverhampton Airport - I learnt to fly here, and had my first flight at the age of 10...this video is very slightly sentimental!

I grew up at RAF Kinloss in the 90s. My old man was serving on Nimrods. I remember he used to take us to families days on the base. Back then it was amazing the amount of aircraft the RAF could pull together for such an event, especially when you consider it wasn't a public air show. We even used to get American and European aircraft over for it. I used to (and still do) love all the British built cold war jets. The past 20 years or so has seen the RAF massively downsize and overhaul its fleet to the point where it's barely recognisable to that of the 90s. All now either foreign built off the shelf based on commercial passenger jets or aircraft designed and shared with other NATO air forces. Nothing uniquely British anymore. So glad I got to witness that old RAF, even if it was for the briefest of moments. Cherished memories for sure.

Thanks, great footage. Surprise go-around at the end!

Your welcome and thank you for sharing this.

The Mk32 underwing refuelling pod, originally flight tested in 1982 under a Sea Vixen by Flight Refuelling Ltd of Bournemouth. It can pass 350 gallons of fuel per minute to a receiver aircraft. When fully extended the hose is automatically “balanced” by varying the torque of the motor until it exactly counteracts the drag of the drogue in the slip-stream. The featherable ram air turbine in the nose of the unit drives a two-stage fuel pump and a hydraulic pump. (based on Mk20B).

Nothing beats the sound of Conway 301s..Happy days at BZZ 1984-88

10 Sqn & 101 Sqn back in my RAF days

Generally see the RAF refuelling aircrafts over the north sea with flightrader24, they generally at altitude 16,000ft circling about 100miles of east cost near Norfolk

Lovely one mate ! I jumpseated on BA VC-10s a few times, my favorite bird ! Didn't notice know these had an FMS retrofit. I assume, triple INS, feeding the FMS navigation or GPS ?

A lot of VC TENDERNESS

They power the drum that sends out the fuel hose.

Cor, what a noisy flight deck! The old inverters!

Dash has no gps screens

What is the lever behind the throttles on the pedestal? The big one, that moves in a circle.

refueling aircraft that were part of joint warrior ex?

6:54 What are those things with little propellers (or reather ram air turbines) under wing?

VC-10. Cramped, uncomfortable on long haul journeys (flying from Edinburgh to Belize) sat with your back to the cockpit so when you took off you ended up with your face in your crotch from the acceleration. Also very feckin noisy. But a beautiful aircraft.

"Scrapping" is such an awful word...especially when you're talking about a plane.

Having flown heavy metal for years, Boeings, the cockpit noise is appalling, steam engines!!

Biggest problem with 101 Sqn was a lot of people had double standards, and if your face didn't fit or you were different, then you might just as well get posted out ASAP!

Look like Russian air plane, took too many people just to fly it and the instrument is clutter and not like standard UD design planes.