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63bomb was actually a pretty fair result. I spent the evening of the firstBLACK BUCK operation with Adm Fieldhouse, incidentally, and I canassure you that he was entirely in favour of the operation.Unfortunately, our ability to replay the Vulcan card was limited bythree crucial factors: the availability of flight refuelling tankers; therelative priorities that had to be juggled between the demands of Vulcan,Nimrod and Hercules operations; and the physical limitations imposedby fuel stocks and parking space at Wideawake airfield.Taking the last consideration first, although Ascension had anexcellent weather factor, it was a volcanic island and neither fixed norrotary wing aircraft could operate from anything other than preparedsurfaces; to do otherwise would have generated far too much highlyabrasive debris. Capacity was limited to twenty-two, or perhaps twentyfour, aircraft at any one time and, although the airfield had previouslyseen only three or four movements a month as a matter of routine, wewere soon rivalling some of the world%u2019s busiest airports. Because aVulcan raid required seventeen tankers and two bombers, it was clearthat no other operations were possible at the same time. We thereforehad to balance the need for seven tankers to support a long range Nimrodreconnaissance, against a Hercules spares run to the Fleet, whichrequired rather less, and the 100% tanking effort demanded by abombing sortie. Furthermore, as we have heard, these decisions requiredthree or four days%u2019 notice in order to ensure that the appropriate aircraftwere at Ascension and to redeploy those aircraft that were not requiredback to the UK, to Gibraltar or elsewhere.The upshot of all this was that only five BLACK BUCK missionswere completed. Three of them were attacks against the airfield, the lastone being carried out on the night before the final push, using airburstweapons with the aim of preventing any of the remaining Pucaras fromattacking our troops and, of course, none did. Whether we were directlyresponsible for that or not is a matter of conjecture.The other two sorties were flown in an attempt to neutralise anArgentine surveillance radar, using Shrike missiles that had beenprovided at short notice from USAF stocks. The radar on the Falklandshad been a bit of a pain in the neck for us as it had some ability to trackour carriers and thus provide targeting information for Exocet attacks.These Vulcan sorties were not spectacularly successful, as the enemyoperators were quick to switch off their radars and, although it was