[Peter Waites]

The Avro Vulcan is an all electric aircraft. This means that should it suffer from total electrical failure it would be uncontrollable and would crash.

In order to prevent this the designers incorporated a Ram Air Turbine (RAT) which could be deployed by the crew in the event of electrical failure.

The RAT is a small generator which although not powerful enough to be used to power all the aircrafts systems would be able to provide enough power to allow the captain and co-pilot to control the aircraft for an emergency landing.

Truly A Useful Gadget!!