Vulcan's Hammer by Chris Gibson

Vulcan's Hammer by Chris Gibson

Following the end of WI the United Kingdom embarked on an audacious program of aircraft and weapons development to maintain its position as a world power. This led ultimately to the V-bombers; Valiant, Victor, and Vulcan, that carried the British nuclear deterrent from the mid 1950s until replaced by Polaris in the late 1960s. Prior to the V-bombers, the British aviation industry examined a number of schemes to deliver that deterrent, such as Blue Moon, while their intended replacements, the supersonic Avro 730 and English Electric P.10, could have been the most advanced aircraft in the world in 1960. As political and military circumstances changed, the V-force adopted new concepts, specifically the American Skybolt and the patrol missile carriers: the Pofflers.

Running in parallel with aircraft development were a number of programs to advance V-bomber weaponry. In addition to free-fall bombs, the UK aviation industry undertook development of missiles and the associated propulsion and guidance systems, and in Blue Steel, created the most complex vehicle ever produced in the UK. As well as arming the Victor and Vulcan, Blue Steel was to form the basis of a range of weapons for TSR.2 and Mirage IV, test vehicles and satellite launchers.

Illustrated with more than 200 photographs and drawings plus new color artwork, Vulcan's Hammer presents the story of an alternative V-force and its armament providing a wealth of fascinating information for historians and modelers alike.

Gibson, C. G.: - Chris Gibson received an honours degree in Mathematics from St Andrews University in 1963, and later the degrees of Drs Math and Dr Math from the University of Amsterdam, returning to England in 1967 to begin his 35 year mathematics career at the University of Liverpool. His interests turned towards the geometric areas, and he was a founder member of the Liverpool Singularities Group until his retirement in 2002 as Reader in Pure Mathematics, with over 60 published papers in that area. In 1974 he co-authored the significant 'Topological Stability of Smooth Mappings' (published by Springer Verlag) presenting the first detailed proof of Thom's Topological Stability Theorem. In addition to purely theoretical work in singularity theory, he jointly applied singular methods to specific questions about caustics arising in the physical sciences. His later interests lay largely in the applications to theoretical kinematics, and to problems arising in theoretical robotics. This interest gave rise to a substantial collaboration with Professor K. H. Hunt in the Universities of Monash and Melbourne, and produced a formal classification of screw systems. At the teaching level his major contribution was to pioneer the re-introduction of undergraduate geometry teaching. The practical experience of many years of undergraduate teaching was distilled into three undergraduate texts published by Cambridge University Press, now widely adopted internationally for undergraduate (and graduate) teaching.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781902109176
ISBN 10	1902109171
Title	Vulcan's Hammer
Author	Chris Gibson
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Hikoki Publications
Year published	2011-04-30
Number of pages	176
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.