Vulcan 558 @ CAA
Although there seems an element of 'cock up' in the Vulcan saga, it does seem odd that if the aircraft is safe to fly Friday that a small extention of the PtF could not be granted to allow the paperwork to be completed.
I think the CAA are likely to get a lot more stick in the near future having refused to issue Permits to Fly for all the aircraft in a well known large warbird operator in the South East. An audit of paperwork is being carried out at the height of the Display Season, which will take some time. This effects the largest warbird airshow in the UK where most of the running costs of the organisation are recouped from the gate receipts. A loss of a huge sum of money,as many aircraft from overseas, perversly with lesser CAA oversight ,are having to be brought in for the event.
Most of the aircraft are fully serviceable but are grounded by bureaucracy.
In my airline career with the largest UK operator we had many CAA maintenance/flight ops audits which were done during normal airline operations. The company was not grounded during the audit as in this case.
Many people are of the opinion that with many CAA functions going to EASA the remaining CAA operatives are giving the remaining small UK operators in all parts of UK aviation a hard time in order to justify their jobs.
Campaign Against Aviation! it's getting worse.