XH558...

[Hooli]

yellowjack said:

MartG said:

Sorry, not 558, but I thought it worth sharing...

Best I can find suggests that the photo was taken during the trials for the AGM-48 Skybolt missile system. Douglas Aircraft were contracted in 1959 The UK joined the program in 1960, and cancelled development of Blue Steel II and Blue Streak. They'd put all of their eggs into the Skybolt basket, but a series of unsuccessful launches of the 'air launched ballistic missile' led to Britain leaving the program and cancellation followed in 1962, when 'submarine launched ballistic missiles' were seen to be the future. It's what led to Polaris and the Resolution Class submarines, and the role change for the V Bomber fleet to tactical nuclear strike with the WE.177 freefall nuclear bomb.

This would all point to the date of the photo being sometime in early 1961, when a modified Vulcan was sent to Santa Monica (Douglas factory) to ensure electrical compatibility with the new missile.

A bit of youtube footage here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSaVsJnetW4

...which also (if you can stomach repeated mention of "nuculer" missiles ) contains some images of Vulcans in various stages of assembly.

Edit to add:
In 1964, the Vulcan B2 in that photograph, XH535, was sadly lost, with 4 crew killed, and one of the pilots seriously injured during ejection, when it crashed during a low speed approach to Boscombe Down during a test flight... http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=55... ...although the fact that the aircraft crashed is a matter of fact, I'm not sure about the 'fact' that there were 4 rear crew on board? Three seats at the bulkhead, surely, but multiple sources state 4 rear crew: XH535, 11/05/1964, Flt Lt J Dingly, Flt Lt F Young, Flt Lt Chilton, MSig Christian AFM (Pilots ejected and survived - co-pilot Flt Lt R Beeson, and captain Mr. O. J. Hawkins, Avro Company Test Pilot)

I don't think four rear crew was unusual if extra brains were needed. I know from the book that 607 had four rear crew on Black Buck 1. The extra was the inflight refuelling specialist IIRC.

[MartG]

Not uncommon to carry an extra crewmewmber on the jumpseat

[CrutyRammers]

knight said:

Shoreham on Saturday

Wowzers
Not seen it at all this year, which sucks, but this thread helps

[NailedOn]

Does anyone have the flight number for XH 558 so she can be tracked on Plane Finder?
Today she is flying from Doncaster to Ayr and I'm interested to see if the route is near to me.

[ATTAK Z]

NailedOn said:

Does anyone have the flight number for XH 558 so she can be tracked on Plane Finder?
Today she is flying from Doncaster to Ayr and I'm interested to see if the route is near to me.

Reg is GVLCN

[NailedOn]

Does anyone have her flight number to track on the Plane Finder app?

[ATTAK Z]

ATTAK Z said:

NailedOn said:

Does anyone have the flight number for XH 558 so she can be tracked on Plane Finder?
Today she is flying from Doncaster to Ayr and I'm interested to see if the route is near to me.

Reg is GVLCN

Vulcan is on flightradar24 over Harrogate now

[Bbunter]

ATTAK Z said:

Vulcan is on flightradar24 over Harrogate now

I heard it earlier. I couldn't see it because of the cloud cover, but that sound is unmistakeable.

[NailedOn]

ATTAK Z said:

ATTAK Z said:

NailedOn said:

Does anyone have the flight number for XH 558 so she can be tracked on Plane Finder?
Today she is flying from Doncaster to Ayr and I'm interested to see if the route is near to me.

Reg is GVLCN

Vulcan is on flightradar24 over Harrogate now

Thanks, I'll will follow their Twitter feed and see is she is heading home my way tomorrow.

[ScottishExile]

Ayr yesterday

[adamfraser]

First time being up close to XH558... Looking forward to the next one. What a sight and noise!!

[Mutley]

I thought I read about 4pm, but I can't find where I saw that

[bluey1905]

http://forums.airshows.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=15&am...

About half way down is the running order for this weekend.

[mycroft]

Just flew over my house . Fantastic
The noise is like nothing else .

[dr_gn]

I had to choose between either seeing two Lancasters, or one Vulcan at the Duxford airshow this weekend.

Didn't take long to decide.









What an awesome display.

Just listening to the radio: 8 mile queues each way into Duxford today. I hope they enjoy the flypast

[dr_gn]

olly22n said:

I had the same choice.

No regrets!!

The thing for me was...you can probably get 90% of the experience of a couple of Lancasters flying together from a video, but only 10% of an equivalent Vulcan display! The ground shakes.

Shame next year will probaly be the last.

[28Valves]

olly22n said:

Indeed.

I did think the rest of the day was dull. All of the action was too far away, and no tornado. Had the Vulcan not been there I would have been thoroughly disappointed.

Same here. After being disappointed with the lineup last year I decided to park at Duxford school and sit on the hill overlooking the IWM. So glad I did. The Vulcan flew so close over the top of us it was brilliant. The rest of the show was really quite boring.

We were going to do the same again today but after hearing about the traffic I decided to build an airfix with my 4year old for the first time instead. 😁

[dr_gn]

For £40 all-in I'm not going to complain about it. Sure, some of the displays were pretty dull, but the rest made up for it. I don't think we missed much with the GR.4 flypast; I expect it would have been just that, based on past experience.

[jmorgan]

Did both. Today was manic compared to yesterday. Nearly bought a compressor blade to boot.

[Quattromaster]

Did Duxford today, Lancs were great, but a bit underwhelming compared to the 727 and red arrows.

Loved the hunter, well I think that's what it was.

All in all a fantastic day, took 2 hrs to get in, and 1 hr to get out, I'll not grumble at that.