Tyres O'Flaherty

The cockpit Canopy has only one pressurisation cycle left before the seals would have to be replaced.



Therefore it is limited to below 10'000 ft anyway.

johnfairr

I was driving past Farnborough yesterday and spotted the Vulcan. Anyone know what its movements will be over the next few days or is it there for the winter?

Vulcan 903

John
Vulcan requires 1 brake unit replacement. Looking at 2 to 3 weeks at the mo, then it will depart for Bruntingthorpe if the runway is safe to land on. Bruntingthorpe has 20,000+ cars on site at the moment.

Latest News item is here: BBC NEWS | England | Leicestershire | Vulcan grounded by faulty brakes

Evanelpus

My god, I hope this isn't true. I'd hate to hear what he would term as a bad one!!


If this one is true, he deserves to be hung, drawn and quartered.

Blacksheep

Not to mention spares support intensive.

Evanelpus

I spent the thick end of ten years servicing these beasts and would say that they had their fair share of niggles but 558 seems to have been blighted from the off.

hurn

Perhaps one where it hadn't got off the ground at all due to lack of funding?

Tempsford

From this months Flypast - XH558 to be mothballed
Excellent idea!
Mothball the aircraft, work out a solid, sustainable plan for the future and then re-enter the display arena. By doing this, the aircraft will be in a far better position to stay on the display circuit for the years to come than it is now.

Temps

JEM60

In my opinion, that will be the end of the Vulcan. If it cannot attract enough sponsorship whilst it is flying, then I fail to see how it is going to attract it while it is on the ground! Even before the economic downturn, NO large sponsor had come on board. How is this going to change in the future, and why would civilian businesses want to get involved in the first place, when they get nothing out of it in return. Sorry, this sad affair simply goes round in circles.
In the US it has proved extremely difficult to attract enough money to overhaul one of their most iconic aircraft, the B.29 Superfortress, despite all the patriotic fervour for military happenings over there. No hope for the Vulcan. I hope I am wrong, but..........

Gulf4uk

HI

Not Forgetting its currently stuck at Farnborough in the open parked
on East Apron in pretty cold weather and could be for a while
this certainly will not do it any Good . Hopefully they can get a sponsor
but it does not look good in this financial climate.

Tony

izeebee

Can anyone 'confirm' or 'not' whether xh558 will be returning to Brunty on November 7th as mentioned on another web site? If she is then I would like to see her fly home! There was no mention of 'time' either......any information would be greatly appreciated......many thanks

skeeler

Another solution if it cannot be kept flying by TVOC due to lack of funding/sponsorship, would be for the aircraft to be presented/returned to the RAF and operated as part of a 'RAF Memorial Flight' to include the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. At least that way the millions of pounds donated by thousands of people as well as the Lottery Fund, will not have been seen as having gone to waste. This would also present a great opportunity for the Government and RAF to publicly remember and recognise the sacrifices made by generations since WW2. If this project to keep the Vulcan flying is allowed to founder, the harm done to the prospects for future funding of vintage aircraft and other similar historical projects in general in the UK will be incalculable.

Vulcan 903

I think Skeeler, might have a good point. But it's not the RAF you have to convince, it's the MOD.
They MOD will say - what benefit does the UK taxpayer get from it, as the UK taxpayer in a way will pay for it - even if it's just parked up at an RAF base for a few weeks/moths etc.
Face the facts - it can't operate of Bruntingthopre, it needs a 24/7 airfield, with the fire cover, FOD checks, no car storage and added security.
The BBMF and the Red Arrows secure sponsorship in one form or another and this can be duplicated to the Vulcan.
Signing petitons to the PM will not generate even £1 and this charity needs hard currency, sort of now. It's the end of October now and still no winter fundrasing plan in place on the only public access portal - the website.
The Vulcan will depart FAB in a week or so's time - it's fate is really unknown.

Come of VTTS trustee's where are you?

BYALPHAINDIA

I don't think the 'Joe public' would be happy for it to be mothballed.

Saying that, I still think some people don't even know what a 'Vulcan' is.

Or appreciate it?

(The Number of mistakes this government makes with money - would pay to run a Sqn of Vulcans)

They soon found 4bn overnight to bail the Banks out

JEM60

Well, if Joe Public won't be happy if it's mothballed, all they have to do is fork out some money, and that will prevent it. Trouble is that WE all like aircraft, but the majority of Joe Public doesn't like them enough to fork out to save it.

Blacksheep

Maybe those Sarf Effrican flying enthusiasts could keep it airborne by getting folks to pay for the privilege of flying it?

GK430

From EGLF to where .....the Bruntingthorpe hangar?

JEM60

Last time I was at Thunder City the asking price was £12,000 for the Frightening. Hate to think how much for a flight in the tin triangle.

skeeler

So here's an idea. We've all heard of cashback credit cards and some of us have them. One well known company is even giving 5% cashback at the moment on all spending over the first 3 months. Maybe a credit card company with some real vision would like to market a new cashback card - they could call it the 'VULCAN' and it could be triangular in shape. Half of the cashback earned could be donated every month automatically by each card holder to TVOC to keep the Vulcan flying. The other half could be donated to the 'Help for Heroes' charity. There might even be enough in the TVOC kitty to make the funds raised into an 'Historic/Aviation preservation fund' with full charitable status to benefit hundreds of similarly worthy projects - I bet EVERY aviation enthusiast in the country and miliions more who support the idea of helping our injured service personnel and their families, would would want one? The first 3 digits of every cards account number could even be '558'. Now, does anyone know a friendly credit card marketing executive out there - one who wants to be inundated with credit card applications ???

Vulcan 903

Yep - I/VTTS have tried getting the banks over the past 5 years to do a Vulcan credit card. I think the only one that I got response back was RBOS who wanted 250,000 names and address of supporters. Then they said it would be viable.

Even tried the aircraft insurers HSBC but they were not interested!