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Camera crews prepare to see XH558 depart on her third crew-training session of 2015.
If you have seen XH558 featured on local or national news bulletins, or in newspaper or online features in the last 24 hours, then this was as a result of a very successful media day held at the airport yesterday.
Over 50 journalists attended a special briefing ahead of the third crew-training flight for the year ahead – one that will sadly be a ‘Farewell Season’ as XH558 retires from her flying duties.
It also signals the start of a new beginning as Robert Pleming was keen to explain to the assembled audience, when he revealed the latest details of her exciting future as the centrepiece attraction for a new kind of educational and engineering academy, as well as being part of a Heritage Centre that will honour the Cold War era.
….and finally, on ITV News last night.
The ‘…and finally’ spot of ITN broadcasts has been an iconic moment of the ITV news coverage for years, so it was fitting that XH558 made the last item in a broadcast made by Natasha Kaplinsky yesterday.
If you missed it, you can see a feature that has the video footage here.
Our thanks go to all the journalists, reporters and crews that arrived and their respective editorial teams in helping document and publicise what will be a major landmark passing-of-time in the history of British aviation. When XH558 does finally retire from flying at the end of this flying season, that will be the last all-British designed and built four-engined aircraft gone from our skies – outlasting other such iconic aircraft like the Nimrods and VC10s.
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Our first 2015 public sighting of the famous Vulcan wing-over caught in excellent light by Richard Hull from Doncaster.
With the high calibre of our own aircrew, it has not taken them long to get refreshed with the handling of XH558 and now Phill O’Dell, Martin Withers, Kev Rumens and Bill Ramsey have all had chance to hone their skills and practice their displays. After practicing at Elvington and Scampton, the crew yesterday returned to Robin Hood Airport where they performed their display to the delight of the assembled media – and hundreds of others around the airport’s perimeter!
Kev Rumens, Bill Ramsey and Jonathan Lazzari were on-board XH558 for the third sortie of the currency and training sessions yesterday. This afternoon, XH558 was able to take-off again with another crew for further practice sessions, See the article below.
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**LATEST NEWS – FOURTH TRAINING SESSION JUST COMPLETED**
An extensive season is naturally hoped for by everyone. With long sorties expected, and the complication of crew rostering taking into account the commercial “day jobs” of those working in airlines, we must make sure each aircrew member gets in as much practice as possible over these initial weeks, so as to be fully current and practiced ahead of the major show season, which commences with Throckmorton on Saturday 6th June.
The crew today were Kev Rumens, Bill Perrins and Jonathan Lazzari, meaning that all five pilots have been able to renew their currency over the training flights this week. |
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INITIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
Salute to the V-Force
– a major tour planned for late June.
A few months ago, the Secretary of the British Aviation Preservation Council (BAPC), Brian Dixon, approached Trust Chief Executive, Dr Robert Pleming with an idea. He proposed that XH558 should visit all the surviving Vulcans in the UK and if possible perform a short display during our final year of flying as a special “goodbye”. He also suggested that each of these Museums could also get involved by holding special events or talks in the week leading up to this final tribute. At the time, like us, he didn’t know that our final year of flight would be 2015.
We liked the idea and gave it a lot of thought; “Salute to the V-Force” was born.
Over the weekend of 27 and 28 June, XH558 will indeed overfly every complete Vulcan, Victor and Valiant in the UK. These two special flights will pay tribute to the unique and revolutionary group of aircraft that formed Britain’s nuclear deterrent for many years.
It will allow us to display XH558 to a wider audience than usual – we will have never completed so many displays in a single weekend before – and working in partnership with the BAPC, the story of the V-Force can be told at each location by the Museums involved.
There will be seventeen sites overflown during the tour, with a small display at many of them. If not a display, there will certainly be flypasts and steep-climb-outs as possible at each. We hope to include the RAF Museum at Hendon, but this will clearly require special permission from the CAA due to the built-up area of the location, which we are hopeful of obtaining.
Given the distances involved, the tour will be split into two separate sorties, one covering a northerly route, then another with a southerly route, if possible both completed over the one weekend, reserved as Saturday June 27th and Sunday June 28th. We are pressing ahead with this earlier in the season, so we can hopefully do another major tour based on national landmarks later in the season.
Here is a list of the remaining complete (UK based) V-Force airframes with their locations in North to South geographical order. |
| 15 Vulcans |
4 Victors |
1 Valiant |
| EAST FORTUNE |
ELVINGTON |
COSFORD |
| CARLISLE |
COSFORD |
| SUNDERLAND |
BRUNTINGTHORPE |
| DONCASTER |
MARHAM |
| WOODFORD |
| WADDINGTON |
| NEWARK |
| COSFORD |
| EAST MIDLANDS |
| NORWICH |
| COVENTRY |
| WELLESBOURNE |
| DUXFORD |
| HENDON |
| SOUTHEND |
| We will be involving all of the Museums and associations at each location with major publicity and all have been very supportive of our idea. We even hope to engage those associations and supporters who look after the few V-Force airframes that sit in the USA and Canada!
More on this soon. |
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| We are fully committed to delivering this tour; with an estimated total flying of nearly 7 hours, we know it is going to cost over £50,000 to deliver. This is where we will ask the help of our supporters in spreading the word as we will be announcing dedicated shares to cover the whole event, with the option of text donation codes by location. By promoting these income streams far and wide with your help, we hope to cover the majority of the costs before launching that weekend, with the balance generated by great publicity and public awareness over those two days.
This is vital, because it will save us eating into valuable financial resources that are earmarked for events later this season. We hope that with the power of social media and our newsletter reach here (regularly received by nearly 65,000 people) we will be able to raise the £3,000 per location needed with just 600-off £5 telephone donations.
WE WILL HAVE FULL DETAILS, AN INITIAL FLIGHT PLAN & HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT THIS TOUR
FINANCIALLY SHORTLY.
FOR NOW, IF ONE OF THESE LOCATIONS IS WITHIN SENSIBLE TRAVELLING DISTANCE OF
YOUR HOME– PLEASE RESERVE THESE DATES IN YOUR DIARY NOW!
SATURDAY JUNE 27th – SUNDAY JUNE 28th
Do share this story with your social media friends as we want as many people as possible to see XH558 fly this season.
Just click on the appropriate logos below to send them a direct link to this news article.
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Your chance to own a piece of aviation history ahead of our latest auction lots closing on Sunday. This is a genuine Avro Vulcan XH558 Datum Setting Plate, part number B152934. It played a vital role as part of the engine management system of a a Rolls-Royce Olympus engine that flew on XH558 for many years. It was removed from No 1 Engine at Hinckley in November 2013 and comes complete with a certificate of authenticity signed by a member of the technical team.
SEE THE EXISTING AUCTION LOTS HERE |
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The Live video streaming app that is setting the technology world and the internet ‘on-fire’ is now also available for Android devices.
We will be using this technology to bring you various short live feeds from either Doncaster or the various shows as possible throughout the season. Download Periscope from the links below, search and save our two feeds and look out for some short videos LIVE FROM THE HANGAR THIS WEEKEND.
Search and follow Xh558 for the national event coverage.
Search and follow Xh558Yorkshire for the regional coverage from Doncaster.
Both feeds also put a notice on our related Twitter feeds, so you will receive a notice of a live broadcast starting.
We will be live broadcasting from the hangar this weekend so you can see how the system works ahead of the busy display season.
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CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR COPY NOW
We know there is always great demand to purchase our annual calendars just as soon as possible and we are delighted to announce that the 2016 edition has just arrived in store and is now available for purchase.
Filled with large images each month the cost remains unchanged at a great value £10 plus postage. |
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