the idea of painting sponsorship markings on the aircraft is probably the chief reason why no major sponsorship has been forthcoming. TVOC evidently have no appetite for covering the aircraft in corporate liveries or logos and HLF would doubtless be unimpressed too, as it would contradict the terms of their donation - the aircraft is supposedly being used as a touring exhibit to show youngsters a representative of the Cold War V-Force. Consequently, anything other than camouflage would be rather ill-advised. Good thing too I think - heaven forbid that XH558 ended-up like the poor Sea Vixen did for so long!
Wouldn't it be far preferable to have the 'Red Bull' or 'Virgin Atlantic' Vulcan flying, than the cold-war-paint one grounded? There are plenty of non-flying Vulcans around to show what they looked like back in the day.
Is there any real possibilty of corporate sponsorship if the 'paint scheme' issue is dropped? If so, it should be taken!
SSD