News article from last week - spokesman says there's no money for any air shows.
Please someone tell me it won't end like this?
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IT WAS hailed as a great British triumph by delighted aviation fans across the world - but last night the achievement was looking increasingly hollow.
After seven years of toil by engineers and £8million of tireless fund-raising - including a £2.7million Lottery grant - an historic RAF Vulcan bomber was finally restored to airworthy condition and soared majestically into the skies last October.
But just six months on, and within hours of Vulcan XH558 completing its stringent test-flying programme, organisers admitted their funds are exhausted and the gleaming jet may never fly again.
Hopes that the huge Vulcan would be the star of air shows around the world for years to come, with millions listening awe-struck to the famous thunder of her four Rolls Royce engines, may come to nothing because all efforts to find a corporate sponsor have failed.
The team of engineers and ex-RAF aircrew operating the Vulcan - which formed the backbone of Britain's nuclear deterrent for much of the Cold War - now need £1.2million a year to keep her flying.
Yesterday the crew flew her back to her home base at Bruntingthorpe in Leicestershire, in what may prove to be her last ever sortie.
Paul Muckle, spokesman for the Vulcan To The Sky Trust, said: 'We had hoped to do 10 to 15 airshows a year, but the money is all used up. As of now, there are no more flights planned. There won't be any airshows.
'We've had £2.7million from the Lottery and £3million from the public. We have always hoped that once she was flying, corporate sponsors would see the potential.
'She's a great British icon and will steal the show at any air displays - which are second in popularity only to football matches. We believe it's an excellent branding opportunity with a huge audience, but it would seem the climate of financial uncertainty isn't helping.'
Vulcan bombers were designed in the late 1940s to carry nuclear bombs into the heart of Russia, and for years the fleet was on round-the-clock stand-by to take off from RAF stations across Britain.
The RAF flew them in anger only a handful of times - in the legendary 'Black Buck' raids of 1982, when crews flew what were then the longest ever bombing missions from Ascension Island to the Falklands to bomb Port Stanley airport and attack Argentine radar sites.
Restoration work of XH558 took many years and was an astonishing feat of determination and engineering, with hundreds of outdated components having to be reproduced and restored.
But without a sponsor the aircraft looks set to stay in its hangar at Bruntingthorpe for good.
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