Fantastic sighting

It’s an awesome-looking craft. I think this is its farewell year, as it’s put in all its flying hours and the parts aren’t available. Something like that. A remarkable sight. Only ever seen one on the ground. Its number is XH588.

In my first year at high school, the V bombers were new on the scene, and one crashed somewhere in our area, and I took a bit of melted aluminium (off a tea chest I think) to school and claimed it was off the V bomber.

I remember them “coming into their own” during the Falklands skirmish. I used to call in at a scrap yard (Uttoxeter?? area) after electronics stuff, and there was a real flurry going on. They had recently bought a load of scrap Vulcan spares, and had an embargo put on it, as RAF wanted some or all of it back ASAP.

Fantastic planes!

Les.

Mate of mine joined the RAF a year before I joined the Army and made it into the AAC. He always said that he wanted to work on V-bombers, particularly the Vulcan. Became an avionics Tech, started on Victors, wound up on Vulcans. He said that they were fiendishly complicated systems and he had to concentrate on the work: decided that booze was not good so stopped drinking. Paid off and he rose through the ranks, but when they gradually started phasing out the V-bomber force he took redundancy.

Being an aircraft nutter, I loved the Vulcan, but the really impressive RAF aircraft for me was the Canberra. First RAF jet bomber, so good that the USAF bought it and it was built there under licence by Martin. It was built in so many variants  and fitted for so many different roles. Its maiden flight was actually 70 years ago this year and the last 2 flying examples were either scrapped or stored after serving with High Altitude Mapping Missions of Spokane, Washington, until around 2000 or 2001. The 2 aircraft had long exceeded their working life by then, so the company must have wrung out as much life as they could from them.

The Canberra saw service all over the world as a bomber and reconnaissance type. Many other air forces bought the Canberra, including Argentina. At the end of its active service, the Canberra was used to test radar systems, engines, missiles and bombs that were to be used in later aircraft. It was such a stable platform that it was even used to test a rocket motor in its bomb bay, that was meant to be used in the English Electric Lightning. That was never used in the Lightning, as the Avon engine eventually developed so much power that it became unnecessary.

Truly, a great servant to the RAF and the country, one of the longest-serving aircraft for the UK.

Would like to have seen that!