GeeRam

.

I've just read on the Flypast forum a poster claiming that a Trustee recently claimed the VOC turned down a offer from the owners of Brunty of a purpose built hangar and office on the grounds of runway FOD and '558 would be leaving Brunty permanently for a base elsewhere.....

Assuming that they ever get any money to fly it again of course, which at the moment does seem an unlikely prospect....and as a serious annual operation, I'm still unconvinced of that being financially viable..?

The Spruse Goose analogy does seem sadly apt at the moment....

Coastergirl

Hi,

I was present at the Vulcan to the Sky Club Members Day on Sat 12 January. Its important news, so for fear of it being overlooked in this thread, I have posted a full (unofficial) report of the talk by Dr Pleming and the Q & A session held.

There is good and bad in the report, I hope you find it interesting reading.

Regards
Coastergirl

BEagle

Coastergirl, whereabouts is your report?

Unfortunately all I can find on the VTTS Forum is:

Sorry, the board is offline at the moment.

The forums are unavailable.

Dr Pleming hasn't provided any formal statement since 10 Dec 2007 - despite all the requests from hitherto loyal supporters. This is not helping the project in the slightest.....

BEagle

Yes, sorry, found it now!

Thanks very much indeed, Coastergirl.

Oh - and Tombstone, Happy New Year. I'm still waiting.......

mr fish

having been a motorsport fan for many many years, i have forgotten just how many times i have heard the terms " military grade this, aerospace grade that", would it not be time these HUGELY funded operations paid back by giving just a little bit of sponsorship money, after all , they seem to have benefited somewhat over the years!!!

spekesoftly

I believe Subaru provide transport for the project.

airborne_artist

Sponsorship is like advertising - you spend money in the hope of getting a lot more back when your new (or existing) customers buy your product. There's no point spending money once they've bought all they can. Defence spending as a proportion of GDP is falling, and is going into far fewer, far larger projects, where advertising and sponsorship are as much use at t!ts on a fish. Hence no chance that defence-based companies will fall over themselves to throw money at TVOC.

mr fish

er, tits on a fish?, f1 has been pimping off aerospace for many years now. even in the late 70s the monocques were fashioned from aerolam and now of course we have kevlar,grp,mil grade connectors etc, why not a small(ish) f1 logo or something similar to show the watching public where all this gear was first used. 10+ teams, 100 grand each(how much do they spend in hospitality alone)= 1 million. surely we get one season out of that!!

goudie

I'm surprised one of the major Oil Companies hasn't offered free fuel. Drop in the ocean for them.

Mike51

Errrr........F1 teams sponsoring the Vulcan?

It may have escaped your notice, but F1 teams raise the majority of their income from sponsorship. Why would they then give it away in the form of sponsoring another, non-related activity?

mr fish

er , yeh, since 1968-gold leaf lotus,jim clark- graham hill. look, i know this is just a personal rant but surely someone can get the jist of my angle(no?, oh fuk it then).

Coastergirl

Hi,

In post #630, Goudie said:
At the Club Members Day in Lutterworth on Saturday 12th January, Dr Pleming told us that Air BP are giving the project 50% of the fuel required in 2008 gratis, and a favourable rate for the remaining 50%. Every little helps.

Regards
Coastergirl

MostlyHarmless

Not looking good. at the moment...

harrogate

They've still got a long way to go to beat this government's 'how much can we spend on an aircraft that'll never fly?' record.

airsound

Dr Rob Pleming (CEO of Vulcan to the Sky) has just (0650) been on Today on Radio 4, talking to Jim Naughtie.

I haven't yet got the 'listen back' details, but I'll post them when I can, unless anyone else can do so in the meantime. Rob and I are both in Belgium at the European Air Show Council meeting, so internet access is a bit spasmodic at the mo.

airsound

Low Ball

I heard the interview this morning on Radio 4.

They are looking for sponsorship of an immediate £150K and £50K per month until the Airshow season starts. The presumption then is that once flying and on view to the public the money will come rolling in and the CEO sited 2 cases - £6M over the life of the project all from public donation and IIRC £1.5M over a 12 or was it 18 month period. It sounded to me as if he felt the public would come to the rescue.

Mr Naughtie did not ask if there was a Plan B and one was not volunteered. Judging by what I read on this thread the future looks more ugley that rosey.

LB

cornish-stormrider

Talking of roses........

Mr Tombstone, do we have anything to tell us?? How about PM'ing everyone with a link to the dirty deed

Fake Sealion

Commence Rant

Shell recently reported a trading profit of £13.9 billion for 2007. That is £1.5 million per Hour
The Vulcan project is seeking approx £350K to get the aircraft to the first Airshow. Shell would generate that sum in 14 minutes.

However, I'm clealry missing the point somewhere.

End Rant

flightlineuk

Sean, Here's the link to the appropriate part of the show - you need to skip to about 20.00 mins :-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/li...1_20080222.ram

Tim McLelland

The whole saga seems to be turning into a farce. I know that Pleming is a past master when it comes to issuing "scare tactics" announcements, so I hope his latest comments are little more than that. On the other hand, if TVOC really have failed to find any significant sponsorship by now, the project's clearly dead. The whole saga rested on the first flight and it was claimed that sponsors were waiting in the wings to come forward, once the aircraft flew. Well... where are they? Sounds like typical British bull**it... people full of vaguely good intentions, but they run a mile when they have to put their hands in their pockets.

There is only one sensible option. HLF threw a lot of money into the project. TVOC should go back to them and explain that if they don't give a little more (much less than the amount already given) then all the money they've given so far will be wasted. It's a perfectly logical argument. HLF will doubtless say that they cannot do more but of course they can do what they like. They can twist the rules to suit. How much money will be poured into this stupid two week sports event in London in 2012? It seems obvious to me that if TVOC's PR people did their job well, they could put HLF in a very tight spot. What they gonna do? Throw away millions (again!) just because they're too blinkered to spend a little bit more?

I fear TVOC's people won't even bother asking. They'll be too busy chasing unrealistic goals. I mean, after all that work, the first flight got no more than a ten-second snip of national coverage. Inviting the local news media was pointless. Who gives a toss what local news programmes broadcast? Much as I hate the bloke, they should have had Jeremy Clarkson there, and some other celebs. There is only one way you can get good national TV coverage and that's by having some celebs to provide some banal sound bites. You'd think TVOC would have grasped that fact, and not wasted such a unique event.

It's a sad business.