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Description
The Big Tin Triangle. Avro's epic delta-winged heavy bomber, seen here in Mark 2 guise in many schemes. The B.2 went through some changes over the years, with the installation of terrain-following radar in a nose thimble and a new radar warning receiver in a fin-top installation. Armament consisted of 21 1,000lb bombs, a pair of Red Beard tactical fission bombs, a single Yellow Sun Mark 2 1 megaton fusion bomb or a single Blue Steel rocket-powered cruise missile that carried a 1MT warhead. By the second half of 1970 all the nuclear options had been replaced by the WE177 retarded nuclear bomb.
Despite what some sources have said, there's no documentary evidence of the RAF ever operating a Vulcan variant called the B.2A. Different claims have been made as to what the B.2A would have been, with some sources attributing it to Blue Steel carrying aircraft, some to the later modifications that installed the TFR and new RWR, and further sources stating that it was all aircraft fitted with Olympus 301 turbojets, but all aircraft were referred to by the RAF and MoD as B.2, regardless of engines, armament or electronics fit. No. 27 Squadron did operate a slightly modified version throughout the 1970s, designated the B.2(MRR). This was intended to take on the secondary maritime radar reconnaissance and air sampling roles previously filled by No. 543 Sqn's Victor SR.2's. To accommodate the air sampling equipment (the Victors fitted it in modified underwing tanks) the B.2(MRR) had two small pylons attached to the outer wings. The sampling pods, built from old Hunter drop tanks, were attached here. MRR aircraft were easily identified by the lack of the TFR thimble, but at least one of No. 27 Sqn's aircraft kept the nose thimble.
Another crash modification was for the Falklands War. As the Vulcan's onboard ECM system was focused specifically on a series of Soviet-built radars, it wouldn't do much good against the American and German-built radars used by Argentina. So, the old underwing hardpoints, intended for carrying Skybolt ballistic missiles, were reactivated. In free-fall bombing missions the starboard pylon carried an AN/ALQ-101 jamming pod that was more capable against Western radars that the Vulcan's internal ECM; on anti-radar missions these pylons carried AGM-45 Shrike missiles.

So yeah, my favourite aircraft of all time. I can still remember seeing this for the first time as a snot-nosed 9-year-old at the Finningley airshow in 1990. The howl of those engines, the way it went deathly silent when it was head on, the agility of something so big and numb at low altitude... It was one of the most formative moments of my adolescence, up there with the first time I heard Eberneezer Goode by The Shamen and the length of Andrea's school skirt...

Description
The Big Tin Triangle. Avro's epic delta-winged heavy bomber, seen here in Mark 2 guise in many schemes. The B.2 went through some changes over the years, with the installation of terrain-following radar in a nose thimble and a new radar warning receiver in a fin-top installation. Armament consisted of 21 1,000lb bombs, a pair of Red Beard tactical fission bombs, a single Yellow Sun Mark 2 1 megaton fusion bomb or a single Blue Steel rocket-powered cruise missile that carried a 1MT warhead. By the second half of 1970 all the nuclear options had been replaced by the WE177 retarded nuclear bomb.
Despite what some sources have said, there's no documentary evidence of the RAF ever operating a Vulcan variant called the B.2A. Different claims have been made as to what the B.2A would have been, with some sources attributing it to Blue Steel carrying aircraft, some to the later modifications that installed the TFR and new RWR, and further sources stating that it was all aircraft fitted with Olympus 301 turbojets, but all aircraft were referred to by the RAF and MoD as B.2, regardless of engines, armament or electronics fit. No. 27 Squadron did operate a slightly modified version throughout the 1970s, designated the B.2(MRR). This was intended to take on the secondary maritime radar reconnaissance and air sampling roles previously filled by No. 543 Sqn's Victor SR.2's. To accommodate the air sampling equipment (the Victors fitted it in modified underwing tanks) the B.2(MRR) had two small pylons attached to the outer wings. The sampling pods, built from old Hunter drop tanks, were attached here. MRR aircraft were easily identified by the lack of the TFR thimble, but at least one of No. 27 Sqn's aircraft kept the nose thimble.
Another crash modification was for the Falklands War. As the Vulcan's onboard ECM system was focused specifically on a series of Soviet-built radars, it wouldn't do much good against the American and German-built radars used by Argentina. So, the old underwing hardpoints, intended for carrying Skybolt ballistic missiles, were reactivated. In free-fall bombing missions the starboard pylon carried an AN/ALQ-101 jamming pod that was more capable against Western radars that the Vulcan's internal ECM; on anti-radar missions these pylons carried AGM-45 Shrike missiles.

So yeah, my favourite aircraft of all time. I can still remember seeing this for the first time as a snot-nosed 9-year-old at the Finningley airshow in 1990. The howl of those engines, the way it went deathly silent when it was head on, the agility of something so big and numb at low altitude... It was one of the most formative moments of my adolescence, up there with the first time I heard Eberneezer Goode by The Shamen and the length of Andrea's school skirt...