avro vulcan XL426

[vulcanxl426]

Hi Guys

I have the honour of being a engineer on XL426 for the last 2 years and this is the report taken from our website. Welcome to the Vulcan Restoration Trust Web Pages

Sadly 426 will never fly again even if we did have the money as the trust who own her feelsthat it doesn’t fit in our ethos as we want to preserve 426 as a taxi conditiononly .

VRT ChiefEngineer Matt Lawrence said he was "fully satisfied" with how XL426performed and was pleased everything went as expected. The engine run wascarried out as part of our planned maintenance programme for XL426 and saw ourVulcan's four Olympus engines tested at various power settings for just under30 minutes.

One part ofthe day which was far from satisfactory, however, was the weather. In commonwith much of the south of England that day, London Southend Airport was coveredin cold rain and drizzle from early morning to early eveing. Our EngineeringTeam was already soaked through as they made XL426 ready to be towed off herparking pan just before 12 noon. With the towing arm fitted, our air tug pulledXL426 off the pan and onto Southend Airport's newly extended runway, making itswas down towards the airport engine running area to the north of Foxtrot hold.

At XL426's controls for the engine run was our Chief Pilot, Group Captain Bill Burnett RAFRet'd. Bill flew Vulcans with Nos. 27, 50 and 617 Squadrons and wasinstrumental in forming the Vulcan Display Flight at RAF Waddington in 1984.XL426 was the Flight's first aircraft and as OC VDF, Bill flew more than 50displays in XL426 during the 1984 air show season.

Engine start was at 1.00 p.m. with all four engines being run at a variety of different settings before Bill took XL426 for a slow speed taxy back up to the Foxtrot hold point. Interested specatators were the crew of an RAF Sea King Search& Rescue helicopter which flew across the airport (the crew may have beenworried that our engineers were drowning in the rain). XL426's engines wereshut down just before 1.45 p.m. All four engines performed well although No.3will not accelerate to full power. This problem was first seen at our previousengine run in December 2011 and is on the Engineering Team's 'to do' list forthe summer of 2012.