# Vulcan To The Sky.



## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

I just got this e-mail:-

"

Dear Loyal Vulcan Supporter,

In view of the recent news of XH558's critical funding shortfall, and to help gain the maximum national media coverage possible, please take a few moments to forward the following pre-prepared email to the email recipients listed below. Clearly the more of us that forward this message, the greater the chance of achieving our goal of getting XH558 back in the public eye and back into the sky where she belongs.

Please feel free to forward it to any other appropriate media groups that you may have email addresses for. We now have very few weeks left to cross this final hurdle; please help.

Sky Radio News [email protected]

Sky News [email protected]

ITV This Morning [email protected]

Channel 4 Richard & Judy richard&[email protected]

BBC Breakfast <[email protected]

GMTV [email protected]

Thank you for your continued support.

--------------------------------Please delete everything ABOVE and including this line prior to sending----------------------------------

Dear Sky Radio News/Sky News/ITV This Morning/Channel 4 Richard & Judy/BBC Breakfast, (delete as appropriate)

I am contacting you in the hope that your programme might be able to give even the briefest of mention to a worthy cause that is at a crucial point of near financial collapse. For over 9 years, huge efforts have been made to return an icon of British heritage to public display - an Avro Vulcan aeroplane. The whole thrust of the restoration to flight project was based around the invaluable asset it represents to the education of our children, in British science, engineering and history. On the basis of this, it remains the only project of its kind to receive funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

After a record breaking first flight in its present restored form, in October 2007, vital funding and sponsorship has eluded the project team. The aircraft currently sits in a Leicestershire hangar, fully flight-ready, unable to appear at UK airshows this year due to an URGENT cash shortage. If, by the end of March this year, Â£150,000 cannot be found to jump this final hurdle, the whole 9 year project will close along with the extensive education programme built around this incredible machine.

As a national heritage asset, belonging to every man woman and child within our shores, the aircraft's immediate prospects are dire without the rightful media coverage so desperately sought. I would be extremely grateful if you could find even a one minute slot in your busy programme schedule to help champion this unique and worthy cause.

The project website is www.vulcantothesky.com where the entire story of this great British icon is told. The all important means of becoming part of the story and giving urgently needed help is there also.

Thank you for your consideration.

Yours

(Your Name)"

I've just made a small donation at www.vulcantothesky.com , it would be a crying shame for the project to fail at this late stage. There has been a lot of hard work and effort put in to getting this wonderful old machine flying again and I would urge anyone who is a fan of the Vulcan to do whatever they can to help.

Cheers lads.


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## mrteatime (Oct 25, 2006)

here is the link to the page where you can donate.......

Â£5 from me


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## nursegladys (Aug 4, 2006)

as I possibly had this last flying Vulcan at my passing out parade in 1986, I have sent the letter to all the emails listed. Hope this gets off the ground, excuse the pun.


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## Steve R (Sep 29, 2007)

Worth a few quid indeed... tremendous aeroplane, used to be the highlight of every airshow when I was a lad!









Very much looking forward to seeing it again this year... they don't make 'em like they used to!

S.


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## strange_too (Feb 19, 2007)

I'm in for a few quid too & I've forward the email around to a few local stations too.


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## rhaythorne (Jan 12, 2004)

> ...please take a few moments to forward the following pre-prepared email to the email recipients listed below. Clearly the more of us that forward this message, the greater the chance of achieving our goal of getting XH558 back in the public eye...


For all the wrong reasons probably









It may be a good cause, but the approach is deeply flawed. I would suspect that, by the time you read this, that particular message will have been flagged as spam by every one of those particular recipients and might soon get flagged as spam generally. So noone's reading the messages anyway! Targetting one or two local radio stations may not be such a bad idea, but bombarding the listed recipients will do nothing more than piss of their email admins and might perhaps even get your email address blacklisted.


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

Rich,

I've only mailed my local newspaper with the press release, thinking that spamming people is not the way to get the attention this needs.

Other than that, a donation is better than a wink to a blind horse.


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## rhaythorne (Jan 12, 2004)




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## jasonm (Nov 22, 2003)

I think I heard she has a test flight today


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## nursegladys (Aug 4, 2006)

jasonm said:


> I think I heard she has a test flight today


yeah and promptly had to have an emergency landing at RAF Cottesmore for a suspected fire..........it was a fault in the wiring apparently.


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## jasonm (Nov 22, 2003)

Ooops....


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## pg tips (May 16, 2003)

It wasn't an emergency landing, a micro switch failed which meant a motor to close a gear door would not operate. They could not do the planned tests with a gear door open so decided to land.


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

I think they are just being very cautious. They're not going to take even the slightest risk after all the work that's been put into the old girl.


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## PhilM (Nov 5, 2004)

Looking forward to seeing her fly again at some air shows later this year, will bring a lot of childhood memories back again


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

Official announcement from the VTTS website:-

" XH558 took to the air again this afternoon from RAF Cottesmore for her

third test flight, to test the new avionics fit.

The tests discovered a couple of minor snags, but nothing of major

significance; this is after all what the tests were designed to achieve. A

decision was made by the flight crew to shorten the test flight, and the

aircraft landed back at Bruntingthorpe after about 45minutes.

The decision to land early arose because the starboard landing gear bay

door failed to close after take-off, raising concerns that the door might

be strained if flight was continued. There were no safety issues at any

stage.

A further test flight will now be scheduled in the next few days; it is

not anticipated that any major delay will result.

Very many thanks for all at RAF Cottesmore for making the Vulcan team so

welcome over the last three days.

Robert Pleming".


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## PhilM (Nov 5, 2004)

Just read apparently it costs them Â£50k a pop to get her airborne... well worth it I think


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## JoT (Aug 12, 2003)

If you search Vulcan on Youtube there are several videos of the first and second test flight .... the sound of the Bristol Siddeley (Rolls-Royce) Olympus engines are almost as iconic as the Merlin. Great to see my Â£5 was of some use


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## JoT (Aug 12, 2003)

Here's a video of the Vulcan doing a flypast with a Lancaster at RAF Waddington a few days ago


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## pg tips (May 16, 2003)

Was up at Lincoln the other day, came back down the A15 just to get a glimpse of the big Vee, they park her up right on the edge of the base, very elegant.


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

What a brilliant sight, I hope to see the old bird in the flesh at some point.


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## Stanford (Feb 10, 2007)

One of my favourite memories from childhood.

The Vulcan was, dare I say it, more impressive than Concorde - it was a fighting machine after all.

p.s. there is an old one parked up at Southend airport, very close to the road, on my way to STS.


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## Stanford (Feb 10, 2007)

I found this link to the Vulcan Restoration Trust - this is the one parked up at Southend


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## jasonm (Nov 22, 2003)

Woo hoo!

I saw her yeasterday, we were at a wedding and I heard this noise....

Even from so far away it looked glorious


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## PhilM (Nov 5, 2004)

Jason were you looking through your binoculars the wrong way again h34r:


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## Chally2 (Jul 11, 2008)

He does get distracted at times Phil. :lol:

Glad you saw it in the flesh Jase, it is impressive isn't it?

Take it easy mate.


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## jasonm (Nov 22, 2003)

Chally2 said:


> He does get distracted at times Phil. :lol:
> 
> Glad you saw it in the flesh Jase, it is impressive isn't it?
> 
> Take it easy mate.


Very impressive, what was nice was all the blokes in the party instantly stopped what they were doing and stared, all the ladies wondered what the big deal was and so then all the blokes were explaining the big deal... 

I'll take it easy if you do....


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## Steve R (Sep 29, 2007)

Hello chaps, don't know how many of you got to see the old bird over the weekend, but I went to Farnborough yesterday really just to see 558 fly - and she was magnificent.

The sound is unlike any other aircraft I've known and exactly as I remember it from the eighties and early nineties - it really is a shame that it's such a struggle to keep this wonderful piece of British history and engineering in the air. The display was, to be honest, rather more tentative than it used to be - I guess due to a combination of only recent return to flight, budget, and crew inexperience... maybe even relatively marginal airworthyness, sadly. I recall she used to be thrown around pretty impressively by her RAF handlers back in the day! At least they managed to land her again - there was a stiff crosswind and I'd been told by someone in the tower that they expected her to have to take off and go, but whoever had the steering wheel did a good job! 

The important point though is that none of the old magic had been lost - no other aircraft came remotely close to drawing the crowd's attention as the Vulcan did - everyone knew she was there, and the moment she was seen to roll towards the taxiway people were literally running to the display line to see her. If it weren't for 558's own music I'm sure you could have heard a pin drop for the entire time she was on stage... it was THE aircraft on show yesterday, with some interesting support acts from time to time (the A380 was also impressive I thought - nicely flown, and a remarkable beast).

I believe the annual cost of keeping 558 airworthy and on show is Â£1.7 million... unfortunately I don't have that lying around but I REALLY hope someone or some organisation with cash and the vision to make sponsorship work took note this weekend - this aircraft is just as loved by the public as the Spitfire (in fact maybe more so), but unlike the Spitfire, XH558 is one of a kind, and vulnerable due to its complexity in ways that a Spitfire never will be. God knows how much this country is throwing at the Olympics (but let's not go there!) but we really ought to be able to keep this little bit of Britishness alive - the day it lands for the last time we'll all be poorer for it.

I've not transferred the pics from my camera yet, but if they're not too awful I'll post them later! 

S.


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## Steve R (Sep 29, 2007)

...some piccies...


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## JoT (Aug 12, 2003)

Great pics Steve :thumbsup: the had-on view is a fantastic shot.


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## mjolnir (Jan 3, 2006)

Steve R said:


>


 

Wow


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## thunderbolt (May 19, 2007)

Great pics. Thanks for posting. I also remember seeing her in the air before she was grounded, and boy was she impressive.


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