On Thursday evening, 15th November, Brian Burnell and myself were both part of a BBC Newsnight feature on nuclear weapons. The main aim of the program was control of release on Polaris, but a good part of the the article was covering the procedures for control of the weapon on V Force. Anyway, it was an interesting experience, if only to see how they edit to suit their agenda.
There is an excellent supplement to the FlyPast magazine on sale this month at WHS. The whole 82 pages are devoted the Vulcan. Well worth buying. It covers history, 558 and all the remaining Vulcans have their individual stories covered.
After all the waiting, and a fantastic effort by all those involved, 558 made her first air test on the 18th October. Pilots for the day were Dave Thomas and Al McDicken. I believe Barry Masefield was AEO. The flight was only a short one, but from all we hear, it went well. The pilots certainly had a grin on their faces! I guess it is down to them now to get a display format together and we can look forward to seeing the aircraft on the display circuit. I'm sure though that there will still be lots of calls for funding, but at least people will be able to respond to a flying aircraft, rather than one on jacks. Great work.
On Monday 15th I attended a lunch at the Royal Air Force Club with Robert Pleming as guest speaker. He gave a good talk on how the Vulcan Operating Company had managed to get the aircraft to the taxi stage, with an air test expected 'within days', and he was right. He did though speak of the £6M that it had cost to date, and a continuing need for funds. Hopefully now they will get a corporate sponsor on board.
Just had a look at the TVOC site, and the work is moving on nicely. They now have a serviceable aircraft! The Old Lady has now done some slow taxi runs, so we should only be days away from first flight. That should be good to see and hopefully they will get TV publicity.
On Monday I am going to hear Robert Pleming give a luncheon talk at the Royal Air Force Officers club in London. Hopefully it will be upbeat good news!
On the Vulcan to the Sky site the engineering updates are worth a weekly read to see how things are going. The latest, 17th August, says they are now ready for ground runs, and all four engines have been started as well as the AAPU. It looks as though we could soon see things happening. I have added a couple of photos from the 558 site.
Dave Long and myself went to Fairford on Sunday, the weather was not as good as the Saturday, by any stretch of the imagination, however, we had a good day. Unfortunately the display was 'flat' because of the light and the cloud base, which was a pity.
When we had planned the trip we had hoped that 558 would have been part of the display, but this was not to be. However, the commentator did spend some minutes giving the crowd an update on progress and suggested that the first flight could be by the end of July. Let's hope so, and hope that it all goes well.
There were a couple of stands selling various 'Vulcan items', but I looked without buying. The display was good, but it is still incredible to see what crews can do with modern day helicopters; it looks like an unnatural act!
At the end of the afternoon, or when we left about 4.45, it had started raining again and Frecce Tricolori were very limited in what they could; a real shame as they are always capable of a dramatic display.
The August edition of FlyPast has an article on the state of play with 558, also there is an up to date article on their site at www.tvoc.co.uk I have taken the liberty of pasting that in here, along with a couple of shots. Hope they don't mind as any publicity is good.
The following is the engineering update.
558 get’s her first breath of fresh air for nearly a year, as well as a well deserved drink!
Well where do I begin, it's been a very busy and exciting couple of weeks since the last Engineering Update with a number of milestones achieved. 558 took a little stroll outside the other week, the first time in nearly a year with a slight amount of media interest. So what have we been up to? On the airframe side we have a virtually complete hydraulic system (including hydraulic fluid) and functioning Bomb Doors, these were operated under hand pump pressure to ensure there were no problems before operating them under full pressure. Some more of the flying control systems have been built up such as the Artificial Feel System along with the initial rigging.
As for the propulsion systems it's probably been their busiest with the introduction of fuel. This was carried out last week when we pressure tested all of the galleries and tank connections as well as refueling both of the No1 & No2 fuel tanks to full. Some fuel was also put in to the other tanks for a quick leak check. All of this went quite smoothly with only a few minor leaks which were quickly sorted, what is happening now is that the tanks will be soaked checked for 24 hrs at full to check for any leaks then transfer the fuel between the tanks until they have all been checked. To date we have done both No1's No2's and No5's as well as No3 and No4 Starboard, however we have come across our first minor set back with No2 Port having a slight weep from the tank, this has now been removed and sent back to the OEM to be rectified and as long as it is back within the next week it should not hold us up as we are still on the fuel checks.
The electrics are coming along nicely with a trial fit of the new Instrument Panels as well as applying electrical power to all of the other systems as they are required for the other trades. This has led to a few problems all of which have been rectified (not surprising as we have disconnected every electrical connection and re-wired over 4 miles of wiring!).
Well there's a potted update of what we have done over the last few weeks and is not a complete list by no means, so thank you for your continued support and we will keep you updated as we go.
The latest update on the Vulcan To The Sky sites says that 558 will not be ready in time for the 17th June fly past. Let's hope that it is ready in time for Fairford, as I will be there and would love to see her in the air again.
The June edition of Aeroplane has a couple of pages on Operation Grapple, as a result of reading this I made a visit to the National Archives at Kew to go through some of the files and some of the information is soon to be included on my 'V Force' site at www.john-dillon.co.uk/V-Force The edition has a great photo of a spitfire flown by Cliff Spink who was on the same entry as myself at Cranwell.
The July edition of FlyPast has a one page update on the progress of 558, and goes into quite a bit of detail on progress to date.
Unfortunately the photo that I have scanned from the front page of the magazine was quite small, and has 'moire' effects, but it shows the size of the bombs they were dropping on Grapple. The mag says this was an inert 10,000lb Blue danube over Jurby range during the pre-Grapple trials.
The latest edition is in WH Smith and contains a couple of pages on the progress of 558. According to their timeline there should be the first 'post-restoration flight from Bruntingthorpe' in May. Dave Thomas in LHS with Test Pilot Al McDicken alongside; Barry Masfield will be there as AEO.
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