V Bomber namings…

[Pirate Pete]

I’m not quite sure whether this should be in Alternative or the regular Air raft section of tge forum, so please bear with me if I have misplaced it…

When the Government placed orders for the new advanced ‘Medium Bombers’ for the R.A.F. which we all now know as the Valiant, Vulcan and Victor, does anyone know what name(s) Handley Page had in kind for their aircraft which became the Victor?
Vickers had several different names in kind for the ‘Valiant’, one being the Vimy, while Avro proposed the Ottowa.
I have not seen any indications of a ‘pre-name’ for the Victor though…

 

[robunos]

I've read somewhere, probably a book or article by The Great Gunston, that Sir Fred H-P wanted to call the Victor the 'Hades', but this was many years ago . . .

cheers,
Robin.

 

[alertken]

You heard it here first.

Vickers had used Vulcan and Valiant before. By 1951 RAF had established Towns as Bomber names, so maybe Valencia could have been reused. But 6/51 it was Valiant - which had been proposed by V-S, 1943 for T.372*, as T.369 was proposed as Victor.

Korean War then underway as, we thought, Spain/1936 rehearsal/testing ground for WW3. CAS Slessor was a Bomber Man, but must wait for 10/51 General Election before extracting Production funds for Combined Bomber Offensive 2. WSC, PM, was disposed thereto, but cost would be dramatic and US DoD seemed disinterested in subsidy of our Big Bombers - fighters galore, plus Canberra. How to keep PM onside?

It was felicitous that MAP had rejected those names and imposed Spitfire Mks.23, 21. Slessor applied them, 1/52 (Victor), 10/52 (Vulcan) in hope that the most prominent V-Signer would then be ill-disposed to later cancellation.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

(* amended 30/6/23: I plunged into V-S designations and recoiled in horror. Most have F.21 as T.356 and Victor recurs; F.23 has T.372 and Valiant recurs, though Tony Buttler's Top 10 chops {tony-buttler-top-10-cancelled-aircraft.41738} has Valiant as T.371 Spiteful. Can't trace where I found as shown above).