Vulcan XH558 - Test flight today?????

[Paul Bunyard]

Vulcan Departure from RAF Cottesmore

Hi all 1st time post on here, not my normal photographic Subject matter I had a meeting in Nottingham at Lunch and couldn't resist the urge to "nip" over to Cottesmore as I missed the 1st test flight at Brunty and I only live 7 Miles away !.

Enjoy the piccys I have posted more on my website http://www.wildaboutimages.co.uk just follow the link to recent images.







Thanks Paul

[Cricket23]

Having looked on their website, they don't seem to publish when the test flights are going to be. Does anyone know how to get hold of this info as it would be nice to see her fly first hand rather than on the tele?

C23

[Dirty Mach]

Vulcan flies! (dreadful BBC coverage)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7351628.stm

this is fantastic news...

[LowNSlow]

Only the BBC would title the piece "Symbol of destruction takes to the air" instead of "Tribute to the British aero industry takes to the skies after marathon restoration". Tossers.

[frostbite]

Typical of the ignorant and biased trash we have learned to expect from the modern day BBC.

[rotornut]

A beautiful airplane. One the Argentinians will remember!

[baires1]

rotorNUT: only an idiot like u can make such comment.

[digidave]

Great to see the Vulcan flying again, but very strange article - read a bit like it had been written by two people.

[wingman863]

To be fair, argentina did invade british territory and was then subject to the sort of thing the Vulcan was designed for. As such, they are unlikely to forget it or the sea harrier. He made a fair comment.

And as for the 'symbol of destruction' - it is a symbol of destruction! It's a bomber! You know, the type that drops bombs to blow things up... OK, it does have a slightly negative prang to it but it's not unfair. When they go on to say how public donations and lottery funds got it flying again along with the generally positive tone, it does make it quite balanced.

[Landing Drinks]

Well done to all those who have worked tirelessly to bring the Vulcan back into Service.. A real tribute to many many aspects of all that is British...

I hope it makes it on to the show circuits this year.. ?

Shame the BBC only saw fit to put such a derogatory comment up in support of such a splendid effort...

Well dones lads, I wish I could get across to see her in the sky again.

Does anyone know when and where she will be visiable in the air "soon"...

[Plane Speaker]

Having had, and continuing to have, the pleasure of working with one of the Vulcan aircrew for some years now I have become an avid watcher of 558's restoration programme, so much so that I was lucky enough to be at Bruntingthorpe last year for it's first flight following restoration. I knew with as much advance notice as this type of activity presents that the aircraft would be flying this week and scanned the BBC News broadcasts for images. Nothing what so ever where I live, thought it did make the 07.00 radio 2 news. Why oh why can't good news stories such as this get the airing they deserve across national TV?
I do though fear that this will turn out to be very British in it's outcome, whereby it fails at the final hurdle by not securing sufficient sponsorship. Many people will mutter "Well it was a good idea and at least we tried......shame though" and then realise it'll be too late to try again.

[JimmyTAP]

That's odd. I watched live coverage of yesterday's take-off on BBC News 24. Wasn't that dreadful.

[wasaspacecadet]

The coverage of XH558 on Wednesday by News 24 was comprehensive. They even managed to be at Bruntingthorpe for its arrival after a truncated flight.

And while the news website headline is open to interpretation - it was designed to drop nuclear weapons.

Credit where credit is due and all that.

WASC

[Empty Cruise]

...one the Argntineans will remember?

Oh, yeah - that would be that 12-aircraft-mission to get 13 bombs off-target 8K miles from home - and one bomb on the perimeter of the target.

Yeah, we all remember that one

No-one remembers the SHAR INS-guided bomb runs, but then again, they didn't require 60% of all UK AAR assets commited, and they actually hit something

[Cater]

Vulcan

This is the best aircraft news this month after all the flak re T5 at LHR thank goodness there is still people who put there hearts into projects like this and what a wonderful result
Well done to all concerned

[idl1975]

I was actually quite surprised by the amount of coverage given to it on "prime time" news. Lots of footage of the flight and no vox pops or random 'expert' asked biased or stupid questions, as seems par for the course these days. I'm sure it can't hurt on the donations front.

And I have to agree with previous posters about the "symbol of destruction" language - after all, it wasn't designed to drop flowers and little paper hearts on people. Symbol of destruction could refer accurately to either the bomber or the nukes.

[kms901]

The coverage I saw was very smpathetic. On the lunchtime mainstream news, then News 24 for quite some time, including a long hold waiting for it to get airborne. All those interviewed were knowledgeable and positive, and there was no commentary at all during take off roll and climbout. It even got a mention on the weather forecast. And no mention of how many hospital beds/teachers salaries/hip operations could have been provided from thesame amount of money.

[Wycombe]

Plane Speaker,

In defence of the Beeb (in this case), I thought their coverage of XH558 yesterday was surprisingly good, as others have said. What I heard and saw was:

- Edmonson was interviewed by Nicky Campbell on Radio 5 at Breakfast Time.
- During Breakfast on BBC1/News24, there were several live pieces from Robert Hall at Cottesmore.
- Further pieces throughout the day on News24, including an interview with Pleming, coverage of the take-off (with no talking so we could hear that lovely noise!), and a cut from coverage of Zimbabwe being discussed at the UN so we could see the (earlier than expected) landing at Bruntingthorpe live!

Perhaps you were watching Sky News Well done BBC (especially for not wheeling out Learmount, Yates, Tusa, Beaver, Moody, Nichol or any of the other usual "aviation/military" talking heads)

[spiney]

Symbol of destruction?... hmm... Avro Lanc destroyed a lot more than the Avro Vulc ever did... I get the sentiment but I doubt it'll quench the public's enthusiasm for the beautiful beast once she gets on the display circuit. Being a child of the 60's I can well remember some fantastic Vulcan displays at Lossiemouth - ground shaking with the noise and max rate climb showing that unique delta profile... horsing in off the Firth, low pass over the golf course blowing away anyone foolish enough to be playing... climbing slightly to clear the perimeter fence (OK, I exaggerate a little..)... can smell it right now and it's as vivid today as it was 40 years ago.

Many congratulations to the restoration team.

[fireflybob]

Far from being a symbol of destruction I would have thought the Vulcan actually kept us safe from being destroyed during the "Cold War"!

Great to see it flying again and top marks to all that have helped to make it happen.