A familiar number to some, XH558 is the last Vulcan Cold War bomber that survives in a condition that will allow it to fly again after the type was withdrawn from service in 1984. XH558 performed her last display flight on Sunday 20th of September 1992 at the Cranfield Dreamflight air show, and flew to her home at Bruntingthorpe on the 23rd of March 1993.
Kept fit by exercising through taxiing runs, a campaign was started to return her to the sky. For those who attended the air displays she attended, the Vulcan was one of the most eagerly awaited attraction, and everyone would gather at the side of the runway for her acceleration run, take-off and climb. The 4 Rolls-Royce Olympus engines truly shook the earth, and the normal consequence of the take-off run was the triggering of the majority of the visitor's car alarms. In flight, she provided a stunning display, at both high and low speeds, thanks to the huge delta wing. It was no myth that this huge bomber had the maneuverability and performance to match a fighter.
The efforts to return her to the sky are soon to become reality, although it is dismaying to note that once again, the European Union has managed to throw some directive spanners into the works, delaying them and significantly increasing their cost. In 2005,
No doubt to be revised, 2006 was to see her in the air, with display flying beginning in 2007. More details can be found (and contributions made) at:
Heritage Lottery Funding has secured much of the project, but delays, additional costs, EU directives, and loss of sponsorship have left a shortfall of some £350,000.
I suppose the delays are a sort of 'good news'/'bad news' thing. Although they lost some sponsorship, she will fly to a later date, and that date is coming. One thing that is known is that when she does return to the air, her flying life has a limit of 400 hours, and will fly for ten to fifteen years to give the general public the greatest opportunity to see her before finally flying to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford where she will remain for the benefit of the nation, in perpetuity.
I was dismayed to receive the following noitification today: It is with great regret that the Trustees of Vulcan to the Sky have been obliged to issue letters of termination of contract to the workforce at Bruntingthorpe and Wimborne.
Despite unremitting and continuing efforts to find a major benefactor or sponsor for the project, none has yet been identified. Escalating costs mean that a million pounds are still needed before the end of August if the aircraft is to be returned to flight next year.
Everything is still being done to find such a company or person but time is getting very short. To be unable to complete the project after so much has been given and so much achieved is little short of a tragedy; but, as has been said before, the combination of time lag, engineering cost uplift and no sponsor has so far rendered the task insurmountable.
If οΏ½1M can be identified and raised over the next four weeks, it may still be possible to move forward to meet the target of flying for the Falklands Commemoration and the 2007 Air Display season.
Not having the spare οΏ½1,000,000 lying around under the bed, all i can do is add a post in here to add a little publicity to the appeal.
Now that they've managed to kill all the Concorde's - a Concorde will never be seen flying again, as their working parts are no longer airworty, having already deteriorated due to inactivity - concentrating on retaining a representative from a unique period in aviation has gained increased importance.
XH558 took to the skies back in October of 2007, and has since been undergoing various airworthiness and certification tests in order to get ready for the 2008 air show season.
That said, work has not been continuous, as sponsors have had to tighten their belts in the current economic conditions, with a funding gap meaning work stopping at one point, and brought a public appeal for further donations to keep the restoration company afloat. The last major announcement was on March 18, confirming that work was once again underway.
This made it all the more surprising when I read that XH558 was going to appear at the 2008 Leuchars Air Show on Saturday, September 13. Having kept an eye on the slowly developing Leuchars Air Show web site, and the Vulcan to the Skies site, I had no idea this was one the cards, as neither site currently has any mention of this appearance. And I just looked again - Jersey is marked for Thursday, September 11, two days prior to this, and is the last event currently listed in the TVOC calendar at the moment.
I'd like to think we will see and hear XH558 so soon, but unless the Air Show site and the Vulcan's owner come up with this info too, I'm not holding my breath, especially as it would be the last event of the year, and the furthest flight from Home Base at Bruntingthorpe, both reason for it to be cancelled even it is scheduled.
In an interesting coincidence, it's now 15 years since XH558 arrived at Bruntingthorpe in 1993, and with the delays in her restoration, 2008 will mark the start of her last 15 years of flying life, as this is the remaining predicted life of of the aircraft's airworthiness, after which she will no longer be flight certifiable, and it is expected that there will be no airworthy parts left in the stores.
I see something has gone amiss on our most recent blog entry about Leuchars, and part of the entry has gone walkabout. Even more odd is the fact that the missing stuff is not in the backup either. Need to revise it, just to keep things right, but it included a pic which probably belongs here too.
Pictured at the recent RAF Waddington International Airshow last Saturday, Avro Vulcan XH558 took to the air for her first public display since 1992.
Here we see XH558 flying in formation on the tail of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight's Lancaster - significantly, although separated by some years and looking rather different from one another, both aircraft were created by Roy Chadwick at Avro.
The Vulcan never flew its circuit / display at Leuchars due to the rubbish weather condidtions, it flew out Sunday morning to a bone shaking rumble, the pilots gave a circuit round the base for the 150+ people that were there and off they went, this is proberly the last time that she will be in scotland as the major sponser has pulled out
I had to stop looking, or I wouldn't have got anything done - pics all the way back to the first prototype, and quite a few details of the atomic weapons carried.
You can also try having a look for the 1963 demo for the Queen, when a Vulcan went from "cold" on the runway to "wheels off" in a mere 69 seconds!
If you never came across it, the Vulcan had a special button for such occasions, and instead of starting the four engines in sequence and following procedures, pressing the one button started EVERYTHING at the same time. In times of heightened tension, they could go even faster, being warmed up and positioned at the end of the runway, just waiting for the GO word to send them off their Soviet targets to deliver their nuclear payload, but this was only ever done in exceptional circumstances, since it used fuel and reduced endurance.
Although Britain played no actual part in the Cuban Missile Crisis, the then Prime Minister ordered the Vulcans into a state of readiness that could be seen by "Spies in the Sky", and this powered up the aircraft, and moved them toward their runways, but stopped short of the final provocative move of actually placing them into position and ready for immediate take-off. His intention was merely to show to anyone watching that although they were not fully deployed, they were ready to do so with minimal delay (and no way for an attack to disable them) if called upon by the Americans.
Four Bristol Siddeley turbojets coming on stream together and running up to military power to lift the aircraft off ASAP must have been a shock to the system - and better than any roller coaster
If you never came across it, the Vulcan had a special button for such occasions, and instead of starting the four engines in sequence and following procedures, pressing the one button started EVERYTHING at the same time. In times of heightened tension, they could go even faster, being warmed up and positioned at the end of the runway, just waiting for the GO word to send them off their Soviet targets to deliver their nuclear payload, but this was only ever done in exceptional circumstances, since it used fuel and reduced endurance.
I've never come across the first, which probably proves my rule that having good stuff lost inside forums is one of the web's downsides, but I'll keep a note of it as I really have to get down to noting some links properly for reference.
Although I've come across the second, it's got so much detail, I've never done anything more than skim over it, and said "I need to go back and go slower one day".
As regards the weapons themselves, Violet Club was just a bad joke and it stretches credibility to see it as a viable weapons system. It s development as Yellow Sun Mk1 (YS1) wasn't much better and it was only with the Yellow Sun Mk2 (YS2) that I feel it could be said that the UK had a credible weapon.
Of the WE177 series, the 177B was the primary weapon assigned to the Vulcan force. Although we were trained on the 177A :the differences were minmal; I doubt that many if any were ever actually assigned to the MBF.
Red Beard was also allocated to the Vulcan as a secondary weapon, but once again I doubt that any were ever deployed in this role. Training on the Red Beard ceased in about 1968/9.
The other weapon was of course Blue Steel, which I was fortunate enough to avoid!
I ask because the site referred to mentions operation after a bomb drop and recovery to a friendly airfield - if it had been possible.
This indicated that ECM would have been activated as required in order avoid enemy action against the aircraft, which is understandable.
However, nowadays, we are forever being told that one or two EMP weapons (or just suitable nuclear detonations) could wipe out the electronic equipment across continents.
I've always struggles with these wide-reaching claims, and the only validation I've seen was the apparent surprise when electronic equipment was reportedly knocked out unexpectedly during the first nuclear bomb tests.
If the EMP camp is to be believed, then at the range a retreating nuclear bomber would be leaving the drop zone, ECM would be largely unecessary since the EMP would have killed most of the electronic system for miles around.
(I am supposed to be qualified to calculate this sort of of effect for myself, but I gave up after starting to read up on the factors which contributed to the magnitude of the effect, as the available info was so varied, and the claims and assumptions so wild, that I could really just have made up number and plugged them into the equations and come up with whatever answer I wanted, and began to think that this is all that those who make claims regarding the extent of an EMPs effectiveness do - they can hardly build one and drop it over Europe or America to test it.)
Is this effect something you might have any knowledge of?
My understanding of the effect of EMP on electronic equipment is that it induces current that burns out the junctions of transistors. So any electronics that is valve powered is only marginally open to damage. The V- bombers were children of the 60s and 70s where mechanical, electro-mechanical and hydraulic systems reigned supreme. More related to the Lancaster than the winged microchips of today. So flying back to Blighty after encountering their own, and anyone else's, EMP would seems feasable using "traditional" methods of navigation and flight control. Navigator
Navigator is on the right track, there were precious few transistors in V-Bombers. Have a look here to see just how electro-mechanical some of the nav systems were:
Much of the ECM wasn't much different, great big photo-multipliers driving them. Less subtlety, more like raw power. Big components need high induced currents to damage them and are relatively easily protected. On the other hand you don't have to do much to a chip to stop it working. As I am sure you are aware there are measures you can take to reduce vulnerability to EMP but it is expensive and tends to be applied solely to critical systems and locations.
Indeed, the effects of the EMP are a "modern" effect which electronics are allegedly victim to in response to a nuclear burst or the deliberate deployment of and EMP weapon.
I wasn't worried about the Vulcan crew as they would be travelling in a hardened aircraft. As per the description elsewhere, they'd have to be, otherwise the nuclear burst from our American allies, which they would potentially be flying through, would knock them out of the sky before they could deliver their payload.
I was thinking more of the hardware on the ground that might have been set to get them in revenge on the way home - assuming the concept of "home" would mean anything after a real nuclear exchange. However, I have read various psychological accounts of the aftermath, where those left have nothing to lose, and will to anything to exact revenge. It's easier to upgrade ground based hardware than avionics, so I had mulled over the possibility that the ground based weapon control systems would be converted/upgraded from valves to transistors, but perhaps not subject to expensive hardening, so the EMP (if it had the wide effect foretold) would knock them out in advance of ECM.
But, I have to say I'm just rambling on the subject, rather than expanding on anything I've read - in fact, I've never read anything like this, maybe it's still classified
Hardening is well-known (to some) in Scotland, having taken place in secret when the Penetration Aid Carrier (PAC) of the British Polaris missile was upgraded by workers in Greenock during the 1970s.
My understanding of the effect of EMP on electronic equipment is that it induces current that burns out the junctions of transistors. So any electronics that is valve powered is only marginally open to damage. The V- bombers were children of the 60s and 70s where mechanical, electro-mechanical and hydraulic systems reigned supreme. More related to the Lancaster than the winged microchips of today. So flying back to Blighty after encountering their own, and anyone else's, EMP would seems feasable using "traditional" methods of navigation and flight control. Navigator
I remember reading somewhere that when the MiG-29 was not long available to see publically that US 'experts' were sneering at the seemingly primitive interior compared to what was the frontline US jets at the time. Allegedly, this was the reason, was that the Soviet fighter would not be as vulnerable to EMP.
As I recall, it was more one of shock when the experts realised how the valve-based electronics had been used, and what they meant for the aircraft in the event of a nuclear conflict. I think the technical expression used was something along the lines of "Oh sh**"
This was the second time they used this expression, the first being just after they first witnessed the flight performance of the new Mig.
For no other reason that it something which will not be able to be posted in a few years...
Watching the British Touring Cars Championship live from Silverstone this afternoon, at around 15:00, even though it was in the midst of the penultimate race of the 2011 season, the TV cameras pointed skywards to let us see XH558 overfly the circuit.
There's a brilliant bit in James Hamilton-Paterson's "Empire of the Clouds", describing terrain-following tests that were done in Nevada - US aircraft were flying at a couple of hundred feet, the Vulcan was going supersonic so low that it's wingtips were carving grooves in the desert
Apparently they quite often collected foliage when doing the same thing in the UK...
The Vulcan was a subsonic bomber, Mach 0.96 max, although it could potentially have exceeded the speed of sound at altitude (in a dive) it would have been in danger of breaking up, or suffering a loss of control since its control surfaces wing were not designed to operate in this region. This speed requires specific design, and the related projects were cancelled, and the TSR-2 supersonic nuclear strike aircraft which would have followed at the time was scrapped when almost complete, due to cuts.
Test aircraft that unintentionally exceeded the design Mach No and approached Mach 1 were found not to have actually attained that speed, but to have suffered damage in the form of deformation to bulkheads.
Suggestions that a subsonic aircraft could go supersonic both in level flight AND at ground level are not likely to have been anything other than tall stories.
Or deliberate mis-information to be carried to the Eastern Bloc to force wasted effort in trying to match the capability during the height of the Cold War.
Just to 'complete' the story, while we might never have managed the supersonic bomber in the end, they are still out there.
This blog features the more well-known Tu-95 'Bear', but for out purposes, the star of the piece is the the Tu-160, known to Russians as 'White Swan', and everyone else as 'Black Knave'
Although several civil and military transport aircraft are larger in overall dimensions, the Tu-160 is currently (as of 2011) the world's largest combat aircraft, largest supersonic aircraft, and largest variable-sweep aircraft built. In addition, the Tu-160 has the heaviest takeoff weight of any combat aircraft.
While similar in appearance to the American B-1 Lancer, the Tu-160 is an entirely different class of combat aircraft, its primary role being a standoff missile platform (strategic missile carrier). The Tu-160 is also larger and faster than the B-1B and has a slightly greater combat range, though the B-1B has a larger combined payload and more modern avionics. Another significant difference is that the colour scheme on the B-1B Lancer is usually radar-absorbent black, the Tu-160 is painted with anti-flash white - hence 'White Swan'.
Max speed: Mach 2.05 (2,220 kph, 1,200 knots, 1,380 mph) at 12,200 m (40,000 ft) Cruise: Mach 0.9 (960 kph, 518 knots, 596 mph) Range: 12,300 km (7,643 miles) practical range without in-flight refuelling, Mach 0.77 and carrying 6 Γ Kh-55SM dropped at mid range and 5% fuel reserves Combat radius: 7,300 km (3,994 nm 4,536 miles) , 2,000 km (1,080 nm, 1,240 miles) at Mach 1.5 Service ceiling: 15,000 m (49,200 ft)
2 internal bays for 40,000 kg (88,185 lb) of ordnance, options include: 2 internal rotary launchers each holding 6 Γ Raduga Kh-55 cruise missiles (primary armament) or 12Γ Raduga Kh-15 short-range nuclear missiles
I have to acknowledge the following as being copyright of those nice people at the Kremlin www.kremlin.ru (cos it's the only pic I could lay hands on quickly that shows the wings swept back, and I really wanterd one like that):
As always, if you go for the auto-translation, some of the stuff is a bit ropey, and I can't say if that is due to slips in the original Russian text, or that auto translation, but I am told there are some definite errors, so I quickly dig out some more reliable info (above).
It may not be supersonic, but the Vulcan still beats the Swan (or Knave) for looks
There's an air show at the Museum of Flight, East Fortune, today (Saturday, July 28, 2012) but they haven't got the Vulcan again (and one or two other display items have already been declared no-shows), but the trust that operates XH558 has put up a video from the Royal International Air Tattoo which took place a few weeks ago.
Different from the more usual videos, this is shot from inside the aircraft, and includes - albeit seeming to be a great distance away -the soundtrack of the four engines in the background, not spoiled by any music or commentary.
They don't describe the location of the camera, but from knowledge of the cockpit, and having flown the Flight-Sim version of the Vulcan, I can say that the view from the cockpit is like looking out of a letterbox compared this, which is superb.
Also, don't miss the 'Shadow of the Vulcan', visible in some of the scenes, and showing the outline of that gorgeous delta shape speeding across the ground.
I think it also shows the flexibility of the aircraft, given it is a huge delta-winged 4-engined nuclear bomber dating from the Cold War:
I use a number of Russian sources to get access to original Russian language blogs - well, I sure as heck can't speak Russian.
English is bad enough with a splash of dyslexia thrown in
Black Knave is just an auto-translation of the original Russian for Blackjack.
It will have occurred in the first source I was pointed towards the original source blog for the Russian photo-blog post given near the start of this thread.
When you have been taught to translate (I did the standard stuff as I had to take a language in the dim and distant past as a necessary qualification, but it was not Russian), then one thing you stop doing is trying to hit literal or exact word-for-word equivalences. So long as the sentence, para, or whatever makes sense, and may take account of local dialect or custom, then the translation is sufficient.
Clearly, in the naming of things, while Blackjack and Black Knave are not exact, they are equivalent as the Jack is also known as the Knave in cards.
I hope that makes some sort of sense, and you are not now either more confused... or sorry you asked
In any event, Blackjack is the correct literal in this case, as you spotted
Confirmation this week that an end of an era is approaching.
The Vulcan to the Sky Trust, which faithfully restored Avro Vulcan XH558 to flight status, has now announced that 2013 will be the Cold War bomber's last year as a flying attraction.
It described its decision as having been reached "with particular sadness".
The Trust said also that a wing leading-edge modification required at the end of next year is just too expensive and would not even be certain to allow XH558 to fly on.
Equally important, it is now down to just two spare Rolls-Royce Olympus engines, following the incident which led to two being destroyed in a mishap earlier in the year.
This engine incident seems to have been little reported, and I only came across it at the time (or shortly after, when there were no real details) from following online accounts of XH558, otherwise this would have been a surprise.
Even now, the Trust still has to raise an estimated Β£700,000 ($1.1 million) in order to prepare "The Spirit of Great Britain" to fly during the 2013 season.
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as they would be travelling in a hardened aircraft. As per the description elsewhere, they'd have to be, otherwise the nuclear burst from our American allies, which they would potentially be flying through, would knock them out of the sky before they could deliver their payload.
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