Dan Snow's History Hit30 Apr 2022

Falklands40: The Black Buck Raids

The Falkland Islands lie 8000 miles from Britain making the Falklands War a particularly tricky one to fight; it required some seriously innovative thinking. No story from the Falklands better tells the story of that innovation than Operation Blackbuck which ran from the 30th of April 1982 to the end of the war. British bombers flew 4000 miles from the Southern Atlantic base at Ascension Island to the Falklands to destroy the Argentine runaway at Port Stanley. But there was a huge hurdle; Vulcan bombers couldn't manage that distance on one tank of fuel. Thousands of feet above the Atlantic in complete radio silence, the RAF crews had to engage in mid-flight refuelling, a particularly delicate dangerous process in which one aircraft feeds fuel to another while maintaining the exact same high speed, altitude and bearings without crashing into one another.

Join Dan on a trip to the Midlands Royal Airforce Museum at Cosford where he meets Dr Peter Johnston to tell the story of the Black Buck Raids- the longest bombing mission in history as well as stories of the RAF in the Falklands War from inside the famous Bravo November Chinook helicopter.

You can visit RAF Cosford. Find more information here.

Produced by Mariana Des Forges

Mixed and Mastered by Dougal Patmore

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(1534)

Was Caesar's invasion of Britain a disaster?

Today, we trace Julius Caesar’s dramatic invasions into Britain - two bold expeditions that tested Rome’s reach at the very edge of the known world. Ships were battered by storms, soldiers struggled w...

30 Jul 34min

The Blitz Beyond London

Newcastle, Liverpool, Glasgow, Cardiff - all of these places and more were bombed during the Blitz. From the devastated shipyards of Tyneside to the bombed-out docks of Shieldhall, we strip away the m...

27 Jul 42min

A Short History of The Airport

It’s where our ancient instincts to travel, to trade, to reunite with family and explore meet modern technology and innovation. From muddy airfields to gleaming cathedrals of designer shopping, fancy ...

23 Jul 48min

The Mycenaean World

Before 1200 BC, the ancient world was more connected than you'd ever imagine. Egyptian pharaohs, Hittite emperors and Mycenaean warrior-kings trading gifts, forging alliances and going to war across t...

20 Jul 40min

BONUS: The Complete Map of the Odyssey

A special video podcast where Dan charts the course of Odysseus through the Mediterranean as he investigates the true places that could have inspired the Odyssey. Using his new Big Pad, Dan investigat...

17 Jul 51min

The Real St George and the Dragon

He wasn't an English knight, but actually a Roman soldier, and the dragon didn't appear until centuries later in the medieval period. So what is the origin of the Saint George and the Dragon myth? And...

16 Jul 30min

The Real History Behind The Odyssey

Is there any truth in the Odyssey, and what does it all mean? We know it's a story where a man convenes with monsters and gods, ghosts and mythological beings, but the Odyssey actually does tell us a ...

13 Jul 53min

A Day in the Life of a Gladiator

Step into the roaring arena of ancient Rome, where every sunrise could be a gladiator's last... From brutal training and hard-won fame to the thunderous spectacle that captivated an empire, discover w...

9 Jul 36min