XH558

Lightmancer

Legend
Location
Sunny Frimley
Name
Bill Palmer
Cracking aerial photography from Andy Rouse:

Stunning photographs of Vulcan bomber XH558 flying over Beachy Head

Sad to see the old girl go; the hairs still stand up on the back of my neck from the "Vulcan howl". I was fortunate to see her flying a couple of times in recent years and back in the early 1990s I saw one do a "touch and go" at an air display. I was always reminded of the line from the original "Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" when Douglas Adams wrote of the Vogon ships that they "hung in the air the way bricks don't".

The Vulcan was the last of the V-Bombers; the Valiant, Victor and Vulcan were our first line of nuclear defence against Russian aggression before Polaris came online and the "Senior Service" took over the role of deterrent. Many of the Victors were turned into in-flight refuelling tankers; like the Vulcans they looked like something out of the pages of the "Dan Dare" strip in "The Eagle". The Vulcan only ever flew one actual bombing mission - to the Falklands when the Argentines illegally invaded. The book "Vulcan 607" tells that truly remarkable story. Even then they only bombed the runway. They never took a life in all their years of service.

Farewell old girl.
 
We made a special effort to see XH558 flying in her last season at the Throckmorton air show this year, and these are some of the photos I took that day. They're nothing to compare with Andy Rouse's shots I'm afraid, but here they are anyway.

It was great to see, hear and feel a Vulcan flying one last time - and it's always entertaining to hear all the alarms sounding in the car park after a low pass.

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Vulcan 1
by Richard, on Flickr

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Vulcan 2
by Richard, on Flickr

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Vulcan 3
by Richard, on Flickr

(I read and enjoyed Vulcan 607 too)

-R
 
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XH588 flew for the last time earlier today. I just saw a clip of it on the TV news. There was secrecy about this until immediately before take off to stop large crowds forming to watch her final flight.

There must have been a terrible temptation for the crew to do a barrel roll one last time for the cameras, but they resisted and brought her safely back to terra firma.

Today's pilot was Martin Withers DFC, who flew the Vulcan which attacked the runway at Port Stanley in 1982.

-R
 
Such a beautiful creation and forward-looking design - hard to believe it's just no longer needed.
 
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