Through mutually assured destruction. If they nuked us, we'd nuke them.

I hate the way things are injected with such unnecessary sentiment. The vulcan is very very cool and getting it back into the sky is a great acheivment, but all this 'best of british' stuff does make me feel a tad ill. :yuk:

As is always the case, headlines to
North
East
West
South
Are often written or presented by people without real depth of knowledge or faith to the project. That will grate on those who are better informed.

Good news.
Is that Vulcan did maintain the peace during the cold war, when some might have been a little trigger happy.
It does represent modest pride; to those that have a been a part of that enterprise.
Last but no means least, it is an active symbol for those characteristics that should never be forgotten. Pride Duty Determination and tolerance + care for those that kept these Islands safe.

Lest We Forget

'Symbol of Destruction'

What's wrong with that? One 100 megaton bomb that it was designed to deliver over MEDIUM range would probably have destroyed more than all the conventional bombs previously dropped put together. I don't think much of the Beeb these days, having to suffer BBC Prime scheduling, but I thought the article was pretty well balanced. The Vulcan was not designed for anything like the very long range Port Stanley raid and there were no current bombing crews by that time. Nevertheless they did hit the target as planned and denied the runway's use to the enemy - a fantastic operational and logistic achievement.
I joined the RAF hoping to fly TSR2 but it was cancelled by traitors during my training. I was prepared, and expected to have to fight for my country but maybe I was lucky there was just the 'cold' war in my time. I hated my time on the V-Force but the aircraft was superb and I am proud to have flown it and been part of the winning free-fall bombing crew when we 'waxed' the B52s of SAC. I'm grateful to all those who have in any way contributed to the restoration and hope to be there to see it fly one day.

rts

...and perhaps the tax-bill, gift of the "old witch" :E

PZ :ok:

Ahh Empty Cruise and PapaZulu - you losers!
It doesn't matter that the bombs missed!! The main thing was that we were prepared to do it and we did!
The great missing 'thing' in Britain today is that wonderful "How dare you, you unspeakable foreign person!" attitude. All the years of 'Nu Laybor' have sapped the British spirit to the point where we are rapidly becoming the world's 'nobody's'
How sad. How true.

Turns out that a colleague of mine has some indirect relation to the Vulcan (and indeed the Vampyre and the Mosquito). His father used to spanner on them (i.e. he was an engineer). I've begged him to ask his father to dig out all his old photos from those days...

:)

S.

EmptyCruise - I believe you miss the big picture - whilst the sea jets did a great job in the tactical scenario the fact that UK PLC could do what it did and therefore could have done the same to the Argentinian mainland had a significant impact on the decision makers in Buenos Aires. Not banging the RAF drum loudly here - just saying that UK Forces needed (as we still do) a range of complimentary systems to defeat whichever enemy decides to appear on the radar.

Yes! And the story of that mission is well worth reading:
'Vulcan 607' by Rowland White.

Great to see the old beast airborne again. If the airshow circuit this year proves a success, I wonder if there is any chance she will be repainted in the "correct" colour scheme, i.e. anti-flash white.

In general terms, doesn't this merely go to show that the wording of a headline is all important? Since many people will not read an accompanying article the headline has significant power to influence and even if the article adds so-called balance, it is too late for many?

"Symbol of destruction takes to the air"

I thought they were speaking of the BBC on air coverage. Not sure why they'd title a bit about themselves over a fine story of a beautiful return to flight.:E


Great show. I have fond memories of the Vulcans visiting the Dayton Ohio airshow in the late 1970's.

There's a lengthy thread on this in the Mil forum; worth taking a look, especially at the last ten pages or so which contain some cracking photographs from the last couple of flights (esp. #955).

:ok:

Dismal research.
 

Quote from the article:
"She was the first aircraft to be built by the British firm Avro since the Lancaster bomber."

What about the York, Lincoln, Shackleton, Ashton and Tudor...

Vulcan clips posted on youtube this week..

http://tinyurl.com/3rddeq

How about the Avro 707 A, B & C. Admittedly they could be described as mini Vulcans.

http://www.britishaircraft.co.uk/air...age.php?ID=250

Great to see her finally back in the air! I've been watching this project with great interest, hopefully she'll fly at RIAT this year. Lets hope somebody can make it happen in the future with Concorde...just a shame they don't do it now, instead of waiting for it to corrode, pushing up the expense of a restoration. :ugh:

Taylor.

I remember sitting in a Vulcan cockpit a while back in Sigonella. Seems like it had headrests and lambskin (ala Boeing) seats. Was it based at Akrotiri perhaps?

Isn't one still a gate guard at Goose Bay?

If the Concode flies again the BBC will probably call it a symbol of environmental destruction and ozone depletion...

Pprune calling shoey.......

Really, not even a little?

If Raymond Baxter was still alive he would have paid tribute to such a wonderful aircraft in a way that the BBC would have shown it live on all news bulletins. The event would have been covered professionally and with such dignity that it would have gone down in aviation history as a mark of respect