Originally Posted by danohagan
Tim,
Do you agree that the business plan for operating the Vulcan on the display circuit, as it stands, with or without the HLF, is totally unworkable? And TVOC have yet to show us otherwise?
To be brutally honest I don't know what conclusions to draw as yet. Personally, I think the whole project has been handled poorly and that TVOC are being far too guarded about explaining their actions. I think TVOC have got a great deal of explaining to do, but until I get straight answers to every question I throw at them all, I can't make a judgement, nor can anyone else in my opinion.
My point (which I keep trying to hammer-home, but my God it's hard work!) is that we can get back to TVOC's actions, plans for the future and so on, after the current crisis is over. If the cash shortfall isn't covered, Dr Pleming is quite clear that the Trust have decided to wrap-up the project at the end of this month. If that happens, there's really not much point in arguing about the saga any longer as we'll be discussing a useless hulk of metal, permanently stuck in a Leicestershire field.
I know it's easy to say "ah hah, here we go again - next month they'll be after even more cash, blah blah" but as far as I can determine, this doesn't appear to be the case. The situation appears to be that once this hurdle is cleared, the aircraft can reach the test flight stage. I accept that there are no guarantees after that, but at least the project would have been completed, and if no sponsors then come forward, it really is the end of the matter. But at least we will have tried and we'll know for certain that projects of this nature just do not attract sufficient financial support. But who knows? Sponsors might well come forward when they can see what they're paying for. Or at the very worst, the aircraft might survive in another country. Either way, it's got to be better than allowing years of hard work and huge sums of money to be thrown-away at the last minute.
As I've said, there are no guarantees. The Vulcan's future might well be a short one but we've come so far... let's get the damned thing into the air and then we can start asking questions about the aircraft's future. If it doesn't fly it won't have a future, it's that simple.