Today I was working at Finningley the home of this
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Just after 3pm it it went into the sky.
The first thing you notice is the noise. It makes more noise just taxiing down the runway than a commercial jet makes on lift off!
It then flew towards the house (the floor vibrated) and blew the fumes from it's exhaust into the house as it made it's turn. It smelt like a an old petrol engine with a manual choke that was too far out.
When I was a lad I used to stay at my Uncles farm during the summer holidays near Retford, one day whilst combining in the field a Vulcan flew very low overhead, apart from seeing every detail of it's undercarrage I think I have been somewhat deaf eversince.
Fantastic effort by those attempting to keep it flying - I use to chip in - but I fear it's just too expensive to keep it going for much longer. As you say though, an awesome plane.
many years ago I worked in Pontefract and the Vulcan's used to come in low over the town using the bus staion as a marker. Then they puled the stick back and pushed the throttle hard forward for a near vertical climb.
I still get the shivers down my spine just thinking about them - fabulous planes.
Wasn't their last active flying to the Falklands or have I misremembered that?
For each operation flying direct from the UK, three 22 yr old Vulcans had to be refuelled
8 times in flight by a fleet of Victor tankers based on Ascension Island some of which themselves had to be refuelled in flight. "At almost 6,800 nautical miles (12,600 km) and
16 hours for the return journey, these were the longest-ranged bombing raids in history at that time."
It has been suggested that the Black Buck raids were pressed home by the Royal Air Force[7] because the British armed forces had been cut in the late seventies and the RAF may have desired a greater role in the conflict to prevent further cuts.[8]
[...]
The military effectiveness of Black Buck remains controversial to this day with some independent sources describing it as minimal,[35] the damage to the airfield and radars being quickly repaired.[36] The runway continued to be used by Argentine C-130s until the end of the war and was also available for Aermacchi MB-339 jets[37] and FMA Pucar?s.[38] As a result of the controversy a number of common misconceptions exist about the raid.
An awesome project. To restore a complex 4 engined military aircraft that uses obsolete electrics, etc and to get it approved by the CIVIL Aviation Authorities is hell of an achievement. The fund raising has been done imaginatively and professionally.
We had a CCF camp at RAF Waddington in the 1960s when it was home to the nuclear deterrent Vulcans. One was loud but a flight taking off on one of the quick-response exercises was awesome. But not as awesome as sitting in the rear gunner's turret of the last flying Lancaster.
Possibly, I'd rather trust the book -- Vulcan 607 by Rowland White
-- chronicling the Falklands mission. I found it a very interesting read.
Don't forget the Vulcan fleet was being wound down and was within a few months of being scrapped at the time of the Falklands raid. So it was certainly something of an achievement to bring the fleet back to operational status and mount the raid.
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