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62although I think, at the end of the day, that they probably did not.Bearing in mind that the operating range of the Super Etendardsbased on the mainland did not extend much beyond the Falklandsthemselves, the carriers were obliged to spend a great deal of their timewell to the east of the islands, which created a corresponding rangeproblem for the Sea Harriers. Port Stanley airfield had only a shortrunway. It was unsuitable for the Super Etendard, although it could havebeen used by A-4s, and it could have been extended. Shortly after thewar, we demonstrated the feasibility of extending the runway ourselves,and in very short order, enabling us to deploy Phantoms to maintain theintegrity of Falklands airspace, pending the construction of the entirelynew airfield at Mount Pleasant. So we certainly did not want to see theArgentineans extending the runway which, had I been in charge of theirinvasion, would have been a very high priority in my book. Apart fromthis, in the event unrealised, potential, the Argentineans were known tohave based ground attack Pucaras at Port Stanley and to be runningsupplies into the airfield using Hercules and a variety of smaller aircraft.We, of course, were keen to deny them that lifeline.The Navy%u2019s Sea Harriers later flew a number of sorties in an attemptto hit the runway, but this was an almost impossible task for a single-seatfighter which had been optimised for air defence, as distinct from groundattack work, and it was, in any case, a misuse of this limited resource.Naval gunfire was also tried, but not surprisingly, without any success.Another option was the conventional bombing capability represented bythe Vulcan and it was decided that, in spite of the enormous effortrequired, it would be worth trying to restore its flight refuelling andconventional bombing equipment, both of which had been moribund forseveral years. This meant that, apart from the engineering work involved,we would also have to train a number of crews who had never previouslydone any flight refuelling or, indeed, any conventional bombing.That this was accomplished so quickly and successfully is a greatcredit both to the crews and to the engineers. So it was that the RAFfired the opening salvo in the Falklands campaign by bombing PortStanley airfield on 1 May, hitting the runway with one bomb. Bearing inmind the Vulcan%u2019s very dated systems and its iron bombs, weaponsemployment experts will tell you that, in order to render a runway likethe one at Port Stanley %u2018unuseable%u2019, would have required some twentyfive to thirty sorties, so, despite what some critics may think, that single