nice photos really

Apologies for the delay - been very busy lately

The first pass by the Vulcan was in formation with one of it's Avro sisters - the Avro 19 (Anson). Hard to believe that these two types of aircraft were being built in the same factory at the same time - they look like they come from different centuries!









At the time of this airshow (October 2015) Avro Vulcan XH558 'Spirit of Great Britain' was 55 years old and had been flying for 8 seasons since her restoration.










Her second pass was in formation with a Columba palumbus - a local Wood Pigeon


More to follow soon

Excellet pictures Eric, as always

The BBMF just posted this link up on their facebook page this morning


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSJstiIfEsM

Oooohhhh pr0n overload

Alicatt,
great video - thanks for posting

There's a great DVD/ Blu Ray called 'Renunion of Giants' which is all about the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum's Avro Lancaster's trip to the UK to meet up with BBMF's Lancaster - I highly recommend it. Here's a short trailer for it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ol2rem6d3g

In terms of the Vulcan, this has to be one of my favourite air-to-air clips of XH558 - the combination of the footage and the music really sends a tingle down my spine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMgHBfMUfSM

Chucky, hope you enjoy the prOn

Loved the Avro Vulcan since a kid, I remember reading the book The Penetrators by Anthony Gray (Hank Searls) when I was quite young and that cemented a long love of the aircraft.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Searls
Right off to look at your youtube clips ...

Seen XH558 at Waddington when I was working there at the airshow, this was a few years before she returned to the sky.

That was a fantastic long weekend for me, I was in the control tower for the Red Arrows and Frecce Tricolori doing their practice displays before the big event. Man I wish I had taken my camera out that day instead of waiting for the actual airshow, the displays they put on during the practice were a whole level better than what they could do during the low cloud and bad weather the following day.

I was put up in accommodation along with the Dutch F16 pilots.

It was a great weekend

Alicatt, you lucky man - I'm very envious!!

I looked on Amazon for the book you mentioned - 'The Penetrators' - but they wanted c.£50 for a second hand copy However, I found a very reasonably priced copy on e-Bay, so I placed my order

Reminds me of the Skyshield exercises conducted in the United States and Canada in 1960, 1961 and 1962 to test the NORAD defenses against Soviet air attack. The results of the tests were classified until 1997.

Skyshield I included an "attack" by eight RAF Vulcan B.2 bombers. Four aircraft attacked from Scotland and four from Bermuda. The first "casualty" of the exercise was a Vulcan which was intercepted by an F-101 Voodoo 56,000 ft above Goose Bay, Labrador. Despite this, the Vulcans achieved unprecedented survivability with seven of the eight managing to reach their targets and return to Stephenville, Newfoundland unscathed. Their effectiveness in the exercise was largely due to the advanced ECM systems on these aircraft (three of the southern route bombers putting up a wall of interference while the fourth made an attack), and the Vulcan's unique maneuverability.

During Skyshield II, the RAF Vulcans again participated, flying from Kindley Air Force Base, Bermuda, and four aircraft from RAF Lossiemouth, in Scotland. They simulated Russian heavy bombers operating at the highest altitude - 56,000 ft (17,000 m); the USAF B-52s operating at 35-42,000 ft and the B-47s at low levels. One Vulcan, flying from Bermuda, successfully evaded the defending F-102 Delta Dagger interceptors, covered by the other three jamming with their ECM gear, landing at Plattsburgh Air Force Base, New York. The northern force attacking in a stream reported only a single instance of radar contact by an interceptor and all four landed in Newfoundland.

Here's some more photos of XH558 doing her stuff at Old Warden









She looked fabulous in the late afternoon autumnal light:






Run in with landing gear down - Old Warden has a tiny grass run way, so unfortunately no hope of a touch and go landing ...

Lovely aircraft beautifully photographed thanks for sharing them Eric.

Hmmm Skyshield was just before The Penetrators was written, I wonder if that is any coincidence I have it in hardback back in Scotland, it's been a long time since I read it, and I first read it in the 1960s!

I do remember a Vulcan pilot telling me that the Lightning was all nice and fast and manoeuvrable, but up where the Vulcan flew the lightning could not turn with it, all down to lighter wing loading on the Vulcan.

Such a nice aircraft, glad it came back into the air for a bit...

Alicatt, the book arrived this morning My copy was printed in 1967. Just need to finish reading two other books first ...

One of the commentators at Old Warden use to fly Lightnings - he said that at altitude you needed at least two Lightnings to be sure of getting a 'kill' on a Vulcan, such was it's maneuverability.

RSColonel_131st, yes I agree. I don't think anyone expected her to fly for 8 seasons - the costs were huge! The fact that she did is a testament to the public's affection for such an iconic aircraft and their generous donations. In the end, however, money wasn't the issue - the technical authorities that had to sign off the aircraft as airworthy no longer had the expertise to do so

At the end of XH558's display at Old Warden, Martin Whithers, who piloted Vulcan XM607 on the famous Black Buck raid on Port Stanley runway, quoted Dr Seuss:

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."

Last photos from the Vulcan display.

Bomb run...
































Anyone interested in a copy of the audio recording I made of the Vulcan's display?

Oh yes please!

I took some pictures inside the Carlisle Vulcan last Sunday, such a shame that some vandals had got into the cockpit and wrecked some of it, now you are not allowed into the pilot's or co-pilot's seats.

I was there with my eldest grandson and he loved it

Okey dokey

The WAV audio file is approx. 150MB in size (it was recorded on an Olympus LS-14 4GB Linear PCM Recorder so is fairly good quality). When burned to a CD and played on a decent sound system you can really make the windows rattle

[I can also create an MP3 version but it's still going to be c.50MB in size.]

Never publicly shared files of this size before. Any suggestions on the best way of doing this?

Thanks Eric,

I have a very good sound system
I have a fast unmetered internet connection
My sound system can play WAV/PCM files directly
MP3 is the spawn of the devil

I think I'm ok for playback

Now as to file sharing I use either Dropbox for single large files or Google Drive where I keep scanned photographs from my uncle for sharing with my family, Google Drive has more storage @15GB but has a bigger footprint on the computer and comes with other "useful" software, Dropbox is just really file sharing I think it is a 5GB limit on the free service but can be upgraded to a pro version for money.

http://www.dropbox.com

https://drive.google.com


It will be Sunday before I am back home so there is no rush, here I am on a flaky WiFi connection (this is the third attempt to post this!)

OK, I'll investigate Dropbox and try to get something set up over the weekend

PS/. The site I use to host my photos is 'under-going maintenance' at the moment, which is why the pictures have disappeared from this thread Hopefully they'll have things sorted soon.

Thought I'd "strike while the iron is hot!"

For those of you who'd like a copy of the WAV audio file of Vulcan XH558's last public display, you can get it here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/d0fmqvh2t1br8ny/AADbkQSFvq6-vwYR0DGjaHKTa?dl=0

Let me know if the link works.

Happy listening

Yeah it works.You owe me a new set of speakers...

Glad it works ... sorry about your speakers ...