BAC Super VC10 K4 RAF No 101 Sqn Brize Norton
In 1960, the RAF issued Specification 239 for a strategic transport, placed by the Air Ministry with Vickers in 1961 as an order for five VC10s. The military version was a combination of the Standard combi airframe with the developed wing and Super VC10 engines. It also had a detachable in-flight refuelling nose probe and an auxiliary power unit in the tailcone. The order was increased by an additional six in 1963, plus the three that BOAC had cancelled in 1964. The first RAF machine (known to the service as the VC-10 C Mk. 1, often abbreviated to VC-10 C1), was delivered for testing on 26 November 1965, with deliveries to No. 10 Squadron beginning in December 1966 and ending in August 1968. In 1978 the RAF contracted British Aerospace to convert five ex-Gulf Air Standard VC10s and four ex-East African Airways Super VC10s as air-to-air refuelling tankers. These were known in service as the VC-10 K2 and VC-10 K3 respectively. In the early 1990s, a further five ex-British Airways Super VC10s were converted to VC-10 K4 tankers. Around the same time, 13 of the 14 C1s were also equipped with refuelling pods and redesignated as VC-10 C1K dual-rôle tanker/transports. (The fourteenth had been leased to Rolls-Royce for flight testing of the RB211 turbofan in 1969 and was later scrapped.). The VC-10 K3 and VC-10 K4 tanker-only aircraft are capable of lifting 78 and 68 tonnes of air-transferrable fuel respectively. The VC-10 is affectionately known in RAF service as the "Vickers FunBus" (a pun on the Vickers Gunbus).
Size: 5529px × 3604px
Location: RAF Airforce Base Kinloss Moray Grampian Region Scotland UK.
Photo credit: © David Gowans / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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