Training with V-bomber force
Title
Training with V-bomber force
Description
Wing Commander Douglas 'Hank' Iverson in charge of training on the Valiant, Vulcan and Victor aircraft following time spent flying jet bombers in the United States.
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Language
Format
Newspaper cutting
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
Identifier
SIvesonD19171121v10013
Transcription
Yorkshireman trains V-bomber force
New elite of the air
[italics] From our air correspondent [/italics], ERNEST STOTT
GAYDON (Leamington Spa), Tuesday
A Yorkshireman, Wing Commander D. Iveson, whose home is at Strathmore Avenue, Hull, is in charge of training Britain’s new elite aircrew of the RAF, men of the V-bomber force, at the huge newly built airfield here.
[photograph]
Wing Commander D. Iveson
The security curtain shielding Gaydon from the public gaze was lifted for about four hours yesterday, for the first time since the station was opened in 1954.
Deep in the Warwickshire countryside, Wing Commander Iveson has planned out a training programme which, it is hoped, will provide Britain with the best and most efficient men to fly her new V-bombers – the Valiant, the Vulcan and the Victor, all of them designed especially to carry nuclear weapons.
Wing Commander Iveson, an Old Boy of Hull Technical College, joined the RAF at Brough in 1938 and, after service in the Second World War, commanded squadrons and later went to the Strategic Air Force in the United States. Later he was at the headquarters of Bomber Command.
[photograph]
Flight Lieut. Jack Lord
A £1 million aircraft
He is proud of the men who will eventually fly the Forces’ most expensive aircraft, the Valiant, which costs about £1 million with equipment. They are not young men in the accepted sense of the word.
All are experienced fliers – they have to be before they are accepted for training. For instance, captains must have nearly 2,000 flying hours in their logbooks before their applications can be considered. A man under the age of 26 or 27 cannot be expected to have such a record.
At one time the RAF made no secret of the fact that it wanted the very young man, with more than a dash of adventure in his make-up, to fly their 500 m.p.h. aircraft.
Now, here, the accent is on experience, efficiency and steadiness in this V-bomber force, the cream of the RAF The Service must have officers and men who can be trusted to take no risks with an aircraft worth £1 million.
[page break]
Wing Commander Iveson is one of the few men who has flown the latest American jet bombers, designed for carrying nuclear weapons. He had no comment to make on the relative merits of the Valiant and the American aircraft, but his Commanding Officer made no secret of the fact that he looked upon the Valiant as the outstanding one of its kind in the world.
Half-way house
It is the half-way house in V-bombers. The Vulcan and the Victor are far more advanced in design and suggested equipment.
The Valiant’s performance figures are still secret, and so are its complex pieces of equipment, marvels of “electrickery,” for it is a flying powerhouse and all its controls are power-operated or assisted. There is so much to watch that the crew take an hour doing their pre-flight checks.
Soon the aircraft will have an automatic pilot to simplify the technique of landing approach in the worst weather. All movements of the aircraft during the approach will be automatic, and the pilot takes over only for the actual touch-down.
The bomb-aimers are the men who are being trained to “finish the job.” They are specialists who must have completed the Bomber Command Training School course at Lindholme, near Doncaster, before they can be accepted. A Yorkshireman training here is Flight Lieutenant Jack Lord, whose parents live at Mapplewell, near Barnsley.
The V-force is really an Air Force within an Air Force. Its equipment in the air is new and so is its ground servicing tools. There are new types of pressure refuelling machines, and towing vehicles, and here, at least, there is probably the most modern control tower in the country.
New elite of the air
[italics] From our air correspondent [/italics], ERNEST STOTT
GAYDON (Leamington Spa), Tuesday
A Yorkshireman, Wing Commander D. Iveson, whose home is at Strathmore Avenue, Hull, is in charge of training Britain’s new elite aircrew of the RAF, men of the V-bomber force, at the huge newly built airfield here.
[photograph]
Wing Commander D. Iveson
The security curtain shielding Gaydon from the public gaze was lifted for about four hours yesterday, for the first time since the station was opened in 1954.
Deep in the Warwickshire countryside, Wing Commander Iveson has planned out a training programme which, it is hoped, will provide Britain with the best and most efficient men to fly her new V-bombers – the Valiant, the Vulcan and the Victor, all of them designed especially to carry nuclear weapons.
Wing Commander Iveson, an Old Boy of Hull Technical College, joined the RAF at Brough in 1938 and, after service in the Second World War, commanded squadrons and later went to the Strategic Air Force in the United States. Later he was at the headquarters of Bomber Command.
[photograph]
Flight Lieut. Jack Lord
A £1 million aircraft
He is proud of the men who will eventually fly the Forces’ most expensive aircraft, the Valiant, which costs about £1 million with equipment. They are not young men in the accepted sense of the word.
All are experienced fliers – they have to be before they are accepted for training. For instance, captains must have nearly 2,000 flying hours in their logbooks before their applications can be considered. A man under the age of 26 or 27 cannot be expected to have such a record.
At one time the RAF made no secret of the fact that it wanted the very young man, with more than a dash of adventure in his make-up, to fly their 500 m.p.h. aircraft.
Now, here, the accent is on experience, efficiency and steadiness in this V-bomber force, the cream of the RAF The Service must have officers and men who can be trusted to take no risks with an aircraft worth £1 million.
[page break]
Wing Commander Iveson is one of the few men who has flown the latest American jet bombers, designed for carrying nuclear weapons. He had no comment to make on the relative merits of the Valiant and the American aircraft, but his Commanding Officer made no secret of the fact that he looked upon the Valiant as the outstanding one of its kind in the world.
Half-way house
It is the half-way house in V-bombers. The Vulcan and the Victor are far more advanced in design and suggested equipment.
The Valiant’s performance figures are still secret, and so are its complex pieces of equipment, marvels of “electrickery,” for it is a flying powerhouse and all its controls are power-operated or assisted. There is so much to watch that the crew take an hour doing their pre-flight checks.
Soon the aircraft will have an automatic pilot to simplify the technique of landing approach in the worst weather. All movements of the aircraft during the approach will be automatic, and the pilot takes over only for the actual touch-down.
The bomb-aimers are the men who are being trained to “finish the job.” They are specialists who must have completed the Bomber Command Training School course at Lindholme, near Doncaster, before they can be accepted. A Yorkshireman training here is Flight Lieutenant Jack Lord, whose parents live at Mapplewell, near Barnsley.
The V-force is really an Air Force within an Air Force. Its equipment in the air is new and so is its ground servicing tools. There are new types of pressure refuelling machines, and towing vehicles, and here, at least, there is probably the most modern control tower in the country.
Collection
Citation
Ernest Stott, “Training with V-bomber force,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed August 7, 2026, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/44791.