Valiant XD812 #aviation #nuclear #coldwar #history

Vulcan, Spitfire & aerobatic friends

Valiants, 49 Squadron, Christmas Island, May 1957

Vulcan over a Consolidated B-24D Liberator, 'Lady Be Good' Somewhere in North Africa...

Test-bed for the Olympus 22R engine. The 22R was going into the TSR2. Destroyed by fire on 03/12/1962 after the engine was run to full power on maximum reheat when an Low Pressure turbine disc failed. This disc punctured two fuel tanks which started a fire which destroyed XA894. No injuries caused.

Valiant and a CF100 Canuck #aviation #nuclear #coldwar #history

57 Sqn Victors on Wideawake, 1982 #aviation #history

I think that is a flypast over Buckingham Palace, June 1980 #nuclear #coldwar #history #aviation

This would have been noisy! #aviation #history #coldwar #nuclear

Just finished @wellerstein.bsky.social newest book, "The Most Awful Responsibility", looking at the role of Truman in the development of early nuclear C&C and I was struck by this last line in Chapter 19. I want more on this specific topic!!

NEW EPISODE - Dead Drops and Disguises - A Female #CIA Officer in 1980s #Moscow Listen here 🎧🎧 coldwarconversations.com/episode441/ #coldwar #spies #Espionage #intelligence #undercover

Victor - good view of her wing shape here #aviation #nuclear #history #coldwar

Vulcan's over St Paul's, City of London in the Falkland's victory fly-past; 1982 Credit to Imperial War Museum #aviation #history

Would you be a good leader of a communal fallout shelter in the event of World War III? Fortunately the US Department of Defense created a self-assessment quiz in the 1970s so that you can "rate yourself as a potential shelter leader"… doomsdaymachines.net/p/take-me-to...

I don't disagree... #nuclear #nuclearweapons

Spectacular new hangar extension for the Avro Heritage Museum has been approved. I volunteer at the museaum, helping to produce their podcast and delivering cockpit tours. www.avroheritagemuseum.co.uk

Vulcan head on... #aviation #coldwar #history #nuclear

Vulcan tooled-up #aviation #history #coldwar #nuclear

75 years ago today, the United States conducted the first of 100 aboveground nuclear tests in Nevada, leading to the blanketing of most of the continental United States (and parts of Canada and Mexico) with significant radioactive fallout over the next 11 years.

Vulcan and Friends! #aviation #coldwar #nuclear #history

Vulcan launching with Skybolts

Vulcan test-bed #nuclear #coldwar #history #aviation

The British Army once considered using to chickens to keep some of its nuclear weapons warm enough to use in winter.

In 1980, Tyne Tees' magazine show for teens, CHECK IT OUT, gave kids in the North-East of England the lowdown on nuclear war. And it's a delight from start to finish. Future 'The Tube/Top of the Pops' producer Chris Cowey there, with the perm and mussie.

Vulcan - gear down! #aviation #nuclear #history #coldwar

Victor prototype #aviation #history #coldwar #nuclear

I stumbled across this first-hand account of a nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site from 1957 and couldn’t stop reading it. So I put it up on DOOMSDAY MACHINES. Something to ring in the New Year with, perhaps… doomsdaymachines.net/p/zero-time-...

Spot the aircraft! #aviation #history #coldwar

This is a nice addition to the "bad Cold War ideas" file — nukes that would detonate themselves at full yield "in the event the carrier and/or crew fell prey to the enemy defense." Never adopted as far as I know... from a Sandia study of nuclear safety issues, 1959.

OTD in 1958 at 4:35 PM MST at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, experienced chemist Cecil Kelley, 38, stood on a step ladder peering through a viewport into a 1,000-liter stainless steel tank holding what he believed to be dilute aqueous and organic plutonium solutions as he switched on the stirrer.

This is possiibly one of the greatest things I've seen on the internet... #penguin

Hans Bethe, the scientist who worked in both the Manhattan Project & USA H-bomb programs, wrote in 1983 a 40 page history called "The Story of Los Alamos." It seems not to be publicly available online except where I have made it so, free for all: osf.io/thjpk #NukeSKY 1/n

A friend wants to know more about Teller's concern during the Manhattan Project that the atomic bomb could set off a catastrophic reaction in the atmosphere. So I did a bit of searching. Wikipedia has a bit about it, but I wanted to know the exact reaction Teller was worried about. 1/

Valiant, the forgotten V-Bomber... #aviation #nuclear #history #coldwar

Vulcan with a LOT of friends... #aviation #history #ColdWar #nuclear

55 years ago this morning, BANEBERRY—a 10-kiloton, weapons-related, underground nuclear test 912 feet beneath the Nevada Test Site—accidentally vented, releasing 6.7 million curies of radioactive debris, including 80,000 curies of iodine-131, the second largest venting in US history. (THREAD)

I'm excited about this — expect lots of interesting things in the new year! thebulletin.org/2025/12/alex...

Moody Victor... #aviation #history #coldwar #nuclear

TODAY: Tuesday, December 16, at 12-2pm ET / 18-20h CET!

Vulcan and Tornado - two RAF Cold War veterans #nuclear #coldwar #history #aviation

TOMORROW, Tuesday, December 16, at 12-2pm ET / 18-20h CET I will be part of a book launch event for THE MOST AWFUL RESPONSIBILITY. YOU can attend: in person if you happen to be in Paris (lucky you), or on Zoom. Click "INSCRIPTION" (top right) here to register. www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/fr/even...

Huh! TIL Pu-238 was first plutonium isotope discovered! Seaborg bombarded U-238 w/energetic (15MeV) deuterons making Np-238 that beta decayed to Pu238. hydrogen isotopes (all 1 proton) protium 0 neutrons deuterium 1 neutron tritium 2 neutrons (radioactive) deuteron= deuterium nucleus

It's Monday. You might hate your job. But at least you're not a russian general about to tell Putin that you lost the city you've claimed to have captured 4 times.

Eighty-five years ago today, chemists Glenn Seaborg, Joseph Kennedy, and Arthur Wahl (continuing work by physicist Edwin McMillan) first produced element 94 (plutonium) in the 60-inch cyclotron at UC Berkeley. Exactly 1,700 days later, “Fat Man”—fueled by 13.6 lbs. of Pu-239— destroyed Nagasaki.

The New York Times tries to make a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) into a nuclear weapon.

I am absolutely gutted to hear that Dr. William (Bill) Burr of the @nsarchive.bsky.social passed away yesterday. Bill was so kind, so generous, and so important to the field of nuclear history. And he was just a great guy on top of everything else. It is a huge loss.

This was a dumb thing to do, but the article gets a lot wrong. This was not a "device" in the nuclear weapons sense of an explosive without a delivery vehicle. It was not an explosive at all. I'll write a post. #nukesky

Victor & Buccaneer #aviation #history #coldwar #nuclear

Valiant up amongst the clouds Credit to Alex Hall / Airlines. net #aviation #history #coldwar #nuclear