This is a hopeful appeal to the organisers of the national rally to consider contacting the Vulcan to the sky trust to see if it would be possible to get the worlds only flying Vulcan in her last season to do a flypast.
She he is displaying up the road at Cosby at the victory show on the day so maybe it wouldnt be difficult to change routes and fly over kelmarsh hall, would certainly be a show stopper!
What a great idea!
What an amazing sight these planes are, I had the pleasure of working on camp when they were based at RAF Waddington so saw them most days.
They used to be a staple of air shows when I was a kid back in the early 70’s. Last saw this one at Farnborough a few years back so would be great to see her again. Great idea that man!
Leave it to me, I’ll look into it.
While you’re at it Hawkwind, can you see if you can get XH558 to do a display at Bruntingthorpe at the ‘Cold war Jets Day’ on Sunday 30th. August?!! Pretty please!!
Ken, it flew very low over Moulton several times in Monday the 20th.
It will also be the last time you see a Vulcan flying. 558 is in her last seasonfailwell and the airframe looses its airworthiness certificate this year.
Already seen her at RIAT and due to see her again at Dunsfold, both of us ex-RAF when these aircraft were front line, so this would be a wonderful moment.
Grew up within earshot of RAF Waddington so the Vulcan howl is part of my childhood. There will probably never be a more beautiful and graceful aircraft. Even when they did the stretched version and called it Concorde it didn’t quite work.
Did the hanger tour at Doncaster last year. Even when she is not flying she is still beautiful.
The only time I was lucky enough to see the Vulcan was when we were filming an exercise on Salisbury Plain. I think either the program or exercise was called Skywatch 76. (Memory fade for name and date details…)
The highlight of the day was when the Vulcan did a low level pass and dropped twenty one 1000lb bombs with drag chutes. I had been lurking in a corner in the control tower working our film cameras by radio control and could hear the flight controller, and that was when it got exciting. Two of the bombs chutes didn’t deploy properly and they skipped almost to the edge of the military area before detonating only a few hundred yards behind the aircraft while it was still low level.
One of the exercise targets was a convoy of scrap military vehicles, and the Phantoms were equipped with a Gatling gun, at 6000 rounds per minute it sounded like ripping canvas. The precision was astounding, they took out just the first vehicle and the last vehicle and then the centre vehicle, leaving targets for the other aircraft such as the Harriers. The Harriers missed it completely, so wide off target that one of their shells found the small lens hole in one of our “safely positioned” armour-plate camera shields and destroyed that camera, amazingly leaving the film magazine intact. The Phantoms came round again and neatly stitched up the whole convoy to make up for the Harriers inaccuracy.
There was an old concrete tower in the target zone that had survived being bombed and shot at for decades. The Buccaneers rockets destroyed it completely, just rubble remained.
Those were the days.
which reminds me of a bit of a dilemma we had at Goodwood FoS a few years ago. Having blagged the way in to a stand with a fab view of the start line we had the Vulcan displaying over head and the Mazda 787B sitting in the start line about to launch up the hill! The noise from both was amazing but it was tricky to know which way to look…
Our names are in the bomb bay of xh558 we donate money every month to keep her in the air, one quarter way forward from aft on the starboard bomb bay door andy & helen elsom
The reason I am hoping to help is because one of my heating oil deliveries is Holdenby House (where Charles 1st was incarcerated after the Civil War). The owners have been very supportive of the Vulcan project for many years and whenever the Vulcan is flying nearby, it usually diverts to come over Holdenby (hence Nick’s observation regarding Moulton). I am hoping that they (my customers) can persuade XH558 to fly over Kelmarsh on 6th Sept, since it lies between Cosby and Holdenby. I’m not sure we can get them to fly to Bruntingthorpe on 30th August however; although Bruntingthorpe is, of course, the home of the Vulcan project. I obviously have no direct influence in all this, so any additional support would be most welcomed.
In the late '50s, I lived with my parents next to Waddington Airfield and I well remember the white Vulcans flying over our roof, coming into land, laden with armed atomic bombs as part of the 24hr nuclear deterrent. So we moved to the supposed safety of Northampton - only to discover that the Polaris nuclear submarine communications centre was up the road at Crick and the Blue Streak nuclear missile base was just over the hill at Draughton. Good move Pa!
Loved the Vulcan and saw her again at Fairford that howl is something to behold oh and at the show he rolled her on her back then brought her back most impressive. But my all out favourite Aircraft has to be the English Electric Lighting to see one of these beauties go down the runway sit on its tail and go straight up like a rocket takes your breath away, never to be seen in the air in this Country you have to go to South Africa to see one fly shame.
The Lightning had a climb rate of 50,000 ft per minute as an interceptor but was apparently a bit of a beast to fly. used to watch it at Farnborough in my yoof, fabulous.
Back in the 1960s one of my holiday jobs was as a “Trainee Radio Technician” in the Dept of Civil Aviation on the Airport in Salisbury (Harare now). There was at least one Lightning and a Canberra flying regularly while I was there; both could climb like a rocket, but the Lightning was ever so much better. Jaw -dropping amazing for someone used to watching the Meteors and Vampires.
I built the equipment bay (from scratch) for the fire station at the end of the new runway extension (required to handle the new Jumbo jets). It had three illuminated ‘bells’, Red, Amber, Green, one of which always had to be lit. Green was Active Readiness, Red was Crash Alarm, Amber was Tea Break (stand down).
I’ve been advised that regrettably, the Vulcan’s flight on Sunday 6th September cannot not come further south than Cosby in Leicestershire and we cannot therefore expect to see it fly over Kelmarsh. Sorry folks!
That’s a pity
Thanks Ken for going after it - and given what flew over on Saturday you never know what might go overhead!
