Vulcan to the Ground

My counterblast to the recent botany!

Here is Vulcan XH558 taxying across the active runway (RWY 26) after having landed at Brize Norton.

XH558 is, of course, the restored and flight-worthy Avro Vulcan of the Vulcan to the Skies campaign, but my title has to reflect the observation that this aircraft has come from the sky.. It was piloted here, unless I am much mistaken, by Martin Withers of Falklands fame.

Finally unable to resist the temptation to look at this wonderful aeroplane in action, we set off initially to watch the Vulcan take off for airshows at Waddington and Goodwood. Following exchanges on Twitter that the engineering work was complete and that the aircraft had been "chewed up" (I presume a typo for crewed up), we decided that we could get to BZN in time. We were judging on the basis of the display time at Waddington of ca. 1400. But we were wrong, as were about 30 others, who showed up about 15 mins after takeoff. XH558 had set off for Goodwood first...

So there was nothing for it but to await the return of our hero from its 300 mile-plus round trip. The time passed pleasantly enough, with many jolly, enthusiastic and informed people to talk to. We were able to exchange knowledge about construction, famous operations, restoration, future shows, and radio frequencies (the latter most useful!).

One person passed on the astounding ? if true ? information that Aérospatiale (or its successor) in Toulouse is restoring a Concorde to flying condition (just for airshows, of course). Let it be true! I also heard that a test engineer 'accidentally' lifted off a Victor on which he was performing engine trials

Well, at 14:53 or thereabouts, after listening to radio exchanges with XH558, a dot on the horizon became the great machine itself. I think we were actually on a better bet with a landing than a takeoff, because we could actually see a good deal of the airborne plane. People who saw the takeoff from the W end of the runway said that the 'plane was already too high by the time it was over the end of the runway.

For those who like this kind of thing, I have put up

a short video clip of the Vulcan landing

Taken using my little Coolpix in video mode, the quality leaves much to be desired. One of the problems is knowing if the 'plane is even in frame. However, with a bit of doctoring (VirtualDub) and conversion (TMPEnc), I think that you can see what a fine view we had.