Local entertainment

In some places they turn out to watch trains, here we gather for this:

Well worth it Rob, great to hear those olympus engines roar

I would gather for that. Let me know when they are next lighting the blue touch paper please!

On Saturdays anyone is free to take a closer look and, I am told, for a modest donation can climb inside. Here are a few from earlier.

Would love have witnessed this, love a Vulcan in fast taxi runway mode, better in the sky though

I'm hopefully for that 'One day....'

^ Unfortunately I don't imagine it will fly again - too much of a technical responsibility that no-one will take on. It was certainly impressive when it did fly - I saw a great display at the first Carfest North event, it came low over the car park setting off all the alarms.

You have to admit, they do look quite beautiful don't they? Excellent photographs by the way, really catch the mood.

I believe the last Vulcan flight was in 2015 (photos below), they are all grounded as being no longer airworthy and someone told me yesterday it is because the parts are no longer available or can be manufactured. The volunteers do a great job keeping it running but yesterday's run was a bit slower as the previous one on Friday tore up some of the runway!

My house is about a mile from the airfield but the noise is still pretty loud, I remember a few years ago seeing a Vulcan from my bedroom window : it was so large and flying so slowly that it appeared to be suspended impossibly in the air like some alien spacecraft - then it went full throttle and into a vertical climb, rattling all my windows!

Without wishing to jump on Rob's thread to much, Timeline events do run a shoot with XM655 from time to time, I did one a couple of years ago.

645z - 28 - 45 F4.5 @ 39mm F6.3 - 400 ISO handheld

Nice one, you got lucky with the sky!

Stunning aircraft and lovely photos. I saw her fly at Duxford that final year. Just read the book on the Falklands raid.

Super photos Rob (and Chris) - my memories of the power and style of this incredible aircraft are still strong

Great Photos! Sorry but I'll just have to join in with this ...

link

Cheers
Mike

Lovely pictures of a lovely aircraft.

That's part of the problem, but as I understand the main issue is not having a "technical lead" or something like that name. One of the things they need to do is to assess the impact of other things on the safety of the aircraft. For example, in the classic car world, some people are concerned about the impact that E10 fuel will have on rubber hoses and so on - this "technical lead" needs to be on top of similar changes and be aware of what, if any, effect a change of that nature would have on the aircraft. If jet fuel changes, they need to know what the fuel tank bags are made of, and the hoses, and anything else, and know whether they'll need to be changed. And then replicate that out for every single part of the aircraft. On something as complex as a Vulcan (or Concorde, another hideously complicated one that people would like to fly again) you can imagine what a job that would be.

I saw the final flight of the Vulcan when it did the tour of the UK before being mothballed, it's always been an impressive sight even though it was just cruising for most of that tour.