{"id":980711,"date":"2026-05-18T11:14:32","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T09:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/75-years-ago-today-the-vickers-valiant-first-flew\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T11:14:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T09:14:38","slug":"75-years-ago-today-the-vickers-valiant-first-flew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/75-years-ago-today-the-vickers-valiant-first-flew\/","title":{"rendered":"75 Years Ago Today \u2014 The Vickers Valiant First Flew"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n<p>At Wisley Aerodrome in Surrey on 18 May 1951, the prototype Vickers Type 660 \u2014 registration WB210, the future Valiant \u2014 lifted off the runway for the first time. Test pilot &#8220;Mutt&#8221; Summers, the same man who had taken the prototype Spitfire airborne sixteen years earlier, was at the controls. From his cockpit at 9,000 feet, Britain&#8217;s first jet-powered four-engined nuclear bomber must have felt like a complete repudiation of the war that had ended only six years before. Until that morning, no British aircraft had ever been designed to drop an atomic bomb. From that morning, every British strategic decision until the late 1960s would assume the Valiant could.<\/p><p>Seventy-five years to the day, the Valiant is the largely-forgotten elder of the famous V-Bomber trio. The Avro Vulcan gets the airshow posters, the Handley Page Victor gets the cult following, and the Valiant \u2014 first into service, first into nuclear test, first into actual combat \u2014 sits quietly between them in the history books. Today, on its anniversary, it deserves a second look.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;border-radius:8px;padding:18px 22px;margin:20px 0 28px;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF\"><div style=\"font-weight:700;color:#333;margin-bottom:10px;font-size:15px;letter-spacing:0.3px\">QUICK FACTS<\/div><table style=\"border-collapse:collapse;width:100%;font-size:15px;line-height:1.5\"><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px 6px 0;color:#555;font-weight:600;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:top\">Aircraft<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0\">Vickers Valiant B Mk.1<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px 6px 0;color:#555;font-weight:600;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:top\">First flight<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0\">18 May 1951 (prototype WB210), Wisley Aerodrome<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px 6px 0;color:#555;font-weight:600;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:top\">First flight pilot<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0\">&#8220;Mutt&#8221; Summers, Vickers chief test pilot<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px 6px 0;color:#555;font-weight:600;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:top\">Service entry<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0\">February 1955, 138 Squadron RAF Gaydon<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px 6px 0;color:#555;font-weight:600;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:top\">Powerplant<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0\">4 \u00d7 Rolls-Royce Avon RA.28 turbojets, 10,050 lbf each<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px 6px 0;color:#555;font-weight:600;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:top\">Roles<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0\">Strategic bomber, photo-reconnaissance, in-flight refuelling tanker<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px 6px 0;color:#555;font-weight:600;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:top\">Combat use<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0\">Suez Crisis (Operation Musketeer), 1956 \u2014 only V-bomber to drop bombs in anger<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px 6px 0;color:#555;font-weight:600;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:top\">Nuclear test drop<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0\">11 October 1956, Operation Buffalo (Maralinga, Australia)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px 6px 0;color:#555;font-weight:600;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:top\">Retirement<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0\">January 1965 \u2014 grounded by metal-fatigue scandal<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/div>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Three bombers, one threat<\/h2><p>The Air Ministry&#8217;s Specification B.35\/46, issued in January 1947, asked British industry to design a jet-powered bomber capable of carrying a 10,000-pound nuclear weapon to Moscow and returning. Three manufacturers offered three radically different answers: Avro proposed a delta-winged design that became the Vulcan; Handley Page proposed a crescent-winged design that became the Victor; and Vickers \u2014 facing a more conservative Air Ministry preference for a back-up option \u2014 proposed a relatively orthodox swept-wing design that became the Valiant.<\/p><p>The result was a &#8220;belt-and-braces&#8221; procurement. Britain ordered all three V-Bombers, each on a different production timetable, each filling a slightly different operational niche. The Valiant was the simplest and so the cheapest, and it would be the first into squadron service by some four years. The Vulcan and Victor were the more advanced (and, eventually, more capable) aircraft. But until the late 1950s, the Valiant was the cornerstone of the British nuclear deterrent.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=1271139459  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/0\/05\/Vickers_valiant_camouflaged_on_ground_arp.jpg\/1280px-Vickers_valiant_camouflaged_on_ground_arp.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&#038;utm_campaign=imageinfo&#038;utm_content=thumbnail\" alt=\"Vickers Valiant\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">A camouflaged Vickers Valiant on the ground. The Valiant was painted anti-flash white as a nuclear bomber, then re-camouflaged when it was reassigned to the low-level role in 1962. Photo: Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">From Suez to a hydrogen bomb<\/h2><p>The Valiant achieved two firsts no other RAF bomber has matched. On 11 October 1956, Squadron Leader Edwin Flavell of 49 Squadron dropped a British &#8220;Blue Danube&#8221; Mk 1 nuclear gravity bomb from a Valiant over the Maralinga test range in South Australia \u2014 the first British nuclear weapon ever delivered from a Royal Air Force aircraft. Three weeks later, during Operation Musketeer over Egypt, Valiants from 138 and 207 Squadron flew conventional bombing raids against Egyptian airfields. They remain the only V-bombers to have dropped bombs in anger.<\/p><p>Two years later the Valiant did it again. On 28 April 1958, in Operation Grapple Y over Christmas Island, a Valiant of 49 Squadron dropped Britain&#8217;s first true thermonuclear weapon \u2014 a hydrogen bomb with a yield of approximately three megatons. Britain became the third hydrogen-bomb-armed nation in the world, and the aircraft that delivered the demonstration was the same Valiant that had been the V-bomber stop-gap.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><a href=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/2\/2f\/Royal_Air_Force_Roundel.svg\/200px-Royal_Air_Force_Roundel.svg.png\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"flex-shrink:0\"><img data-opt-id=1219897785  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/2\/2f\/Royal_Air_Force_Roundel.svg\/200px-Royal_Air_Force_Roundel.svg.png\" alt=\"Sqn Ldr Edwin Flavell\" style=\"width:96px;height:96px;border-radius:50%;object-fit:cover;object-position:center;display:block;border:2px solid #ddd\"><\/a><div><em>&ldquo;When the bomb left the aircraft, there was the most remarkable sensation of weight lifting off the airframe. I closed my eyes against the flash. I had been told to expect a great deal, and a great deal happened.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Sqn Ldr Edwin Flavell<\/strong> &mdash; Captain, Valiant WZ366, 49 Squadron \u2014 Operation Buffalo, 11 October 1956<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=1448755411  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/b\/b3\/15_Vickers_Valiant_WZ397_%2815216077444%29.jpg\/1280px-15_Vickers_Valiant_WZ397_%2815216077444%29.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&#038;utm_campaign=imageinfo&#038;utm_content=thumbnail\" alt=\"Vickers Valiant WZ397\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Vickers Valiant WZ397 in its original anti-flash white scheme. The Valiant carried Britain&#8217;s first operational atomic and hydrogen weapons. Photo: Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A spectacular, terminal failure<\/h2><p>In 1962, in response to Soviet introduction of effective high-altitude surface-to-air missiles like the SA-2 Guideline, the entire V-Force was ordered to retrain for the low-level penetration role. The aircraft would now fly at 250 feet and 450 knots to deliver weapons under the radar horizon. The Vulcan and the Victor handled the new profile reasonably well \u2014 heavily built, broad-winged, structurally generous. The Valiant did not.<\/p><p>In summer 1964, fatigue cracks were discovered in the rear-spar lower booms of multiple Valiants. The aircraft, designed for the original high-altitude profile, was tearing itself apart in the high-G turbulent low-level air. The crack-propagation rate ruled out economic repair. In January 1965 \u2014 barely a decade after entering service \u2014 the entire Valiant fleet of approximately seventy aircraft was grounded and immediately struck off charge. The aircraft that had been Britain&#8217;s first nuclear bomber was retired before either of the V-Bombers that followed it.<\/p>\n\n<figure style=\"margin:24px 0\"><div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;border-radius:8px\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FcEri1i1t6o\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:8px;font-style:italic\">Documentary on the Vickers Valiant \u2014 first of the British V-Bombers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The aircraft that taught the RAF how to fly the bomb<\/h2><p>What the Valiant left behind was a generation of senior RAF officers who had personally trained for, and several who had personally executed, nuclear delivery. The aircraft never had to drop a weapon in war, and the absence of that fact is itself a kind of memorial. Britain entered the nuclear age behind the United States and the Soviet Union; the Valiant got it onto a level playing field with both.<\/p><p>Only one complete Valiant survives \u2014 XD818, the aircraft that dropped the Christmas Island H-bomb \u2014 on permanent display at the RAF Museum Cosford. Seventy-five years after its first flight, it sits at the entrance to the Cold War hall, gleaming in the anti-flash white it wore on the morning it carried Britain into the thermonuclear era.<\/p><p><em>Sources: RAF Museum Cosford, Vulcan to the Sky Trust, Thunder and Lightnings, IWM.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 18 May 1951 the Vickers Valiant \u2014 first of Britain&#8217;s V-Bombers \u2014 made its maiden flight. It would drop the first British nuclear weapon, the first H-bomb, and the only bombs ever dropped in anger by a V-bomber.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":980714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_focuskw":"","_yoast_wpseo_title":"Vickers Valiant 75th Anniversary \u2014 Britain's First V-Bomber Flies","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"On 18 May 1951 the Vickers Valiant prototype first flew. It became Britain's first nuclear bomber and the only V-bomber to drop bombs in anger.","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-980711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Vickers Valiant 75th Anniversary \u2014 Britain&#039;s First V-Bomber Flies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On 18 May 1951 the Vickers Valiant prototype first flew. 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