Vulcan XH558 Needs Your Help

[CharlesF]

Vulcan XH558 is the sole remaining airworthy Vulcan bomber and is in urgent need of help to remaining flying. The Vulcan to the Sky Trust have a target of £400,000 to raise before the end of October and have raised £75,000, so far.

Why should you help?

The Vulcan is one of Britain's great engineering marvels, like St Pauls Cathedral or Concorde. To me, it ranks with national treasures that you find in the British Museum, the National Gallery and up and down the country. We need to preserve our heritage, if we don't there will be nothing to give us national pride.

The Vulcan is maintained and owned by a registered charity and has nothing to do with the armed forces (other than supporting Help for Heroes) or the Government.

Please click on this link and support an engineering wonder Vulcan to the Sky

Thanks

 

[Globalti]

Get your wallets out folks, this will soon be our only remaining military aircraft!

 

[Headgardener]

Get your wallets out folks, this will soon be our only remaining military aircraft!

Yeah the charity can lend it to the RAF for special events i.e. wars, battles and dogfights .

 

[CharlesF]

Get your wallets out folks, this will soon be our only remaining military aircraft!

Ha Ha! But it is magnificent and the sound of it taking off - priceless!

 

[MacB]

Ha Ha! But it is magnificent and the sound of it taking off - priceless!

actually a smidge over £400k by my reckoning

 

[gbb]

Ha Ha! But it is magnificent and the sound of it taking off - priceless!

Dad was based at Scampton in the late 60s, early 70s...we lived off base about 5 miles away as the crow flys...and our windowpanes used to rattle when they took off. I can still hear the rumble now.

Dont think he'll have worked on this particular plane, but he did work extensively on Vulcans. I've actually sat in the cockpit of one that was sent to RAF Newton. Strictly against the rules but he snook me in one quiet Sunday and showed me round the cockpit. Amazing stuff to a young teenager, so many instruments and panels, mind boggling stuff....and so cramped. I wonder if its still there ? They landed it there knowing it would never take off from the same airfield.

His brother was a crew cheif flying Vulcans out of RAF Waddington, so he may well have flown this actual aircraft. Dad told me once, his brother was crewed in a Vulcan sent to the States on a joint bombing type excercise. He told dad they had to fly so so low that the buffeting from the ground made him think the plane was going to break up. Violent bucking and vibration...the scariest thing he'd ever experienced.

Dad always said they were the best years of his long RAF career, beautiful aircraft. Bearing in mind he's 80 now, there can't be many people left with the experience on them..and even fewer able to actually work on them.

 

[ianrauk]

Such a beautiful aeroplane.

 

[Mark_Robson]

I'm lucky that there are two grounded Vulcans within an hours drive of where I live that you can admire and explore. The first is at Usworth which is five minutes away and the second is at Carlisle which is about an hour. The sad thing about both of them is they are deteriorating quite quickly due to the weather, vandals or the scroungers ( joke ) from XH558, who often ask for bits for spares or repairs.

I remember watching XH558 at the Sunderland Air show a few years back and she was a beautiful sight and the star of the show. I've already put my hand in my pocket this years for XH558 but she is certainly a worthy cause.

 

[Campfire]

I know someone who is in the organisation for preservation of this wonderful aircraft. I will certainly put my hand in my pocket to help keep it.

A few years ago the Vulcan flew over Barton airshow. I wasn't at that show but as our house is only less than 10 miles as a Vulcan flies, when it flew over our house it was quite low. The feeling of awe as it went overhead I just can't put into words but when I think of it I get the same feeling. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with a zoom lens at the time. I would love to see it again.

 

[mcshroom]

XH558 was the star of last years' Whitehaven festival when it did a flypast over the harbour. The most amazing site and sound was when they laid it back at full power into an almost vertical climb.

A beautiful aircraft, and with an operating range that just simply cannot be matched by an RAF plane in the current fleet.

 

[Hilldodger]

Perhaps they should pay the debts first - why do you think it left Bruntingthorpe?

 

[Arch]

Yeah the charity can lend it to the RAF for special events i.e. wars, battles and dogfights .

Bloody hell, two Vulcans, that would be a hell of a dogfight!

 

[Toshiba Boy]

Can still recall being at the 1980 Greenham Common airshow, where we treated to an amazing array of aircraft. However, a Vulcan completey stole the show with it's trademark take off and immediate pull up into vertical climb. I have never experienced a sense of awe and power before or since to compare to the reverberations coming off the ground from that take off, truly incredible.

 

[Davidc]

Noisy beasts!

 

[skudupnorth]

I love Vulcan's and remember them with fondness in the 80's at airshows waking everyone up and setting off car alarms when they lifted off with the "elephant howl" roar !!! Best memory was a 4 ship scramble at RAF Finningley's airshow....boy did your chest shake when that went off !
It's a shame that the begging bowl has to come out every year to keep the old girl flying,there are many forums who debate this and question non-productive costs such as admin chargers and paying managers massive wages when it should go to the people who actually fix and fly her.

Anyway here is one of my favorite shots of XH558 leaving her birthplace after one of the Woodford airshows in the 90's when she was still RAF owned......que Vulcan Elephant Howl !!!!!