Falklands40: The Black Buck Raids

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.

Episoder(1493)

The Biggest Prison Breakout of WW2

The Biggest Prison Breakout of WW2

During World War II, in the town of Cowra in central New South Wales, thousands of Japanese prisoners of war were held in a POW camp. On the icy night of August 5th they staged one of the largest pris...

25 Jul 202223min

Putin, Power and Personality

Putin, Power and Personality

Vladimir Putin has the power to reduce the United States and Europe to ashes in a nuclear firestorm. He invades his neighbours, most recently Ukraine, meddles in western elections and orders assassina...

24 Jul 202231min

Waterloo Uncovered: Bones from the Battlefield

Waterloo Uncovered: Bones from the Battlefield

In a special episode from our sister podcast Warfare, Dan is joined by host James Rogers fresh off the Waterloo battlefield in Belgium where last week an astonishing discovery was made. The project Wa...

22 Jul 202244min

The Apollo Programme with Kevin Fong

The Apollo Programme with Kevin Fong

Getting to the moon was no easy feat, no matter how confident President Kennedy may have sounded in his famous 1961 speech. NASA built a team from the ground up, and there were plenty of moments where...

20 Jul 202228min

Hatshepsut: The Temple of Egypt's Female Pharaoh

Hatshepsut: The Temple of Egypt's Female Pharaoh

On the West Bank of the Nile in Luxor, Egypt sits a temple considered to be one of the great architectural wonders of ancient Egypt. The memorial temple of Hatshepsut, the great female pharaoh who cam...

19 Jul 202215min

Formidable Heroines of History

Formidable Heroines of History

From the notorious thief Mary Frith in the seventeenth century to industrialist and LGBT trailblazer Anne Lister in the nineteenth, these heroines redefined what a woman could be and what she could do...

18 Jul 202226min

My Life as a Child Prisoner of War

My Life as a Child Prisoner of War

The Imperial Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began on December 25, 1941, after the then Governor, Sir Mark Young, surrendered the British Crown colony to the Empire of Japan. The occupation lasted un...

17 Jul 202217min

Beer

Beer

Pint, bottle, schooner, tinny … no matter how you drink it, beer is undeniably a part of social life here in Britain and around the world.But how did it come to hold this position? Why has this been m...

14 Jul 202245min

Populært innen Historie

rss-dette-ma-aldri-skje-igjen
rss-katastrofe
historier-som-endret-norge
henrettelsespodden
rss-nadelose-nordmenn-gestapo
historier-som-endret-verden
sektledere
aftenposten-historie
rss-strid-de-norske-borgerkrigene
rss-benadet
rss-frontkjemperne
rss-historiske-romanser
med-egne-oyne
historiepodden
rss-gamle-greier
vare-historier
historiepodden-ww2
liberal-halvtime
rss-historiepodden-ww2
sannhet-eller-konspirasjon