# Great Day Out...



## jasonm (Nov 22, 2003)

We had a very enjoyable day out yesterday at the beach with friends in Lancing West Sussex, it was the weekend of the Shoreham air show which was the next town along, so we had a free airshow while playing in the sea...

Star of the show was the magnificent Vulcan, but there were some great displays by the Red Arrows, the Lancaster, Spitfires Mustangs and some old stringbag triplanes dogfighting  They looked so so slow :blink:

A great day.....


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## Bladerunner (Jun 4, 2006)

Nice one, anymore pics Jase? B)


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## jasonm (Nov 22, 2003)

I think so h34r:

Oscar ( 4 months old ) was woken up by the Eurofighter on max burner....He was so scared bless him ...lol...


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## Boxbrownie (Aug 11, 2005)

Damn! Thats a beautiful aeroplane, totally jealous here........I remember I saw one giving a show at RAF Alconbury (USAF airbase) the yanks were dumbstruck at the sight of this huge aircraft lifting off and going into a total vertical climb until it disappeared into the cloudbase at around 6000' it then slipped around and did a fast....very very fast low pass without any warning......ah those were the days of decent airshows :cheers:


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## SEIKO7A38 (Feb 12, 2009)

In the early 70's, I used to work near RAF (USAF) Fairford, where they did much of the Concorde development testing. I'd drive past the main runway, on my way to and from work. There was a test-bed Vulcan aircraft based there fitted with 2? Concorde Olympus engines. Now, to see that particular Vulcan take off into a vertical climb was a *really* impressive sight !


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## Boxbrownie (Aug 11, 2005)

I would think they only fitted 2 (and kept two vulcan olympus as well), as the original Olympus engines fitted to Vuclan produced around 11,000lbs thrust I think, but the prototype Concord(e) :crybaby: version gave around 33,000lbs each...if they fitted more than two I reckon the poor old vulcan might have been turned into the first "high earth orbit" tactical long range bomber :lol:

A wonderous aircraft for sure.

Aha, thats interesting, just found this

"In June 1966 a complete Olympus 593 engine and variable geometry exhaust assembly was first run at Melun-Villaroche, France. On the British side, flight tests began at Filton, Bristol, using an RAF Vulcan bomber with the engine attached to its underside. Tests were limited to a speed of Mach 0.98 as the Avro Vulcan was not intended as a supersonic design. The Vulcan had been chosen as the testbed as it had sufficient ground clearance to allow the Olympus to be slung underneath. During these tests the Olympus 593 achieved 35,190 lbâ€™s thrust"

So maybe it just had the one prototype engine underslung? Not found any piccies yet though.


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## Boxbrownie (Aug 11, 2005)

Found a piccy but its crap, its of Vulcan XO903 with the prototype engine centrally underslung.....

Bet that was good fun B)


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## nursegladys (Aug 4, 2006)

I had a vulcan on my passing out parade in 1986 at RAF Swinderby, it was precipitating profusely ( :crybaby: ), managed to get a few grainy pics, will post if interested.

I also have photos from an airshow at RAF Alconbury I attended with 41 Sqn from RAF Coltishall..........I thought the Vulcan was big.....but compared to the B1 its minute. This particular B1 did the low altitude run from over the hangars on full reheat, this thing was ear shatteringly noisy, yep those were the days :clap:


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## SEIKO7A38 (Feb 12, 2009)

Boxbrownie said:


> Found a piccy but its crap, its of Vulcan XO903 with the prototype engine centrally underslung.....
> 
> Bet that was good fun B)


Yes, after I made that post, I went and did some googling about that particular Vulcan .... as an 'aide memoire'.

It was airframe X*A*903. Yes, it was based at Filton, and it spent the last couple of years of it's life as the Concorde development hack (1970-1971). But it sometimes flew in and out of Fairford (which had a much longer runway than Filton). Landings were *always* parachute brake assisted (due to the approach angle), hence the aircraft's tail cone removed.

See: http://www.2av8.co.uk/pages/xa903/xa903c.htm

and: http://www.fairfordbase.org.uk/1970s.htm (for more Concorde development / Vulcan history)

(I also attended by invitation, Richard* Horne's attempt at the UK LSR in his yellow Ferrari 512M at Fairford).

If you google selectively, there are quite a few decent pics of XA903 with the Concorde Olympus 593 slung underneath. But that's where my memory had failed me - it was only *one* (not two). Just that Concorde engine pod looked so big slung under the Vulcan's bomb bay:



















*Edit: Fairford records show driver as 'Robert'. Anyway the Ferrari 512M was in yellow Hornes Tailoring livery !


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## Parabola (Aug 1, 2007)

Always my favourite plane at the Airshows when I was a kid. Growing up in Newark we always seemed to get interesting stuff flying over usually after Airshows elsewhere, used to see plenty of Vulcans but my favoutite was about 15 years ago when an F117A went over


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## nursegladys (Aug 4, 2006)

ahh the F117!!! it has always amazed me that the 90-91 gulf war was the first time this plane made its debut to the world, and it had been in service for 10 years


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## nursegladys (Aug 4, 2006)

a very wet day in October 1986, we didn't get much of a view or of a flypast, but what a sight :notworthy:


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## handlehall (Aug 7, 2009)

Went to the museum at Cosford (W.Midlands)over the weekend Cold War exhibit there has all 3 V-Bombers also complete TSR2 along with loads of others - free entrance too (donation if you want)Also the book by Rowland White about the Black Buck raids on the Falklands is a great read - Dam Busters for the 1980's I guess.


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## Boxbrownie (Aug 11, 2005)

handlehall said:


> Went to the museum at Cosford (W.Midlands)over the weekend Cold War exhibit there has all 3 V-Bombers also complete TSR2 along with loads of others - free entrance too (donation if you want)Also the book by Rowland White about the Black Buck raids on the Falklands is a great read - Dam Busters for the 1980's I guess.


I can thoroughly recommend RAF Cosford, we went the about 8 years ago whilst visiting Telford, what a great museum, not sure now but then they had loads of civil commercial airliners as well, a great day out for sure.


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## handlehall (Aug 7, 2009)

A fair sprinkling of military transports but no civilians - don't think I missed 'em


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## pg tips (May 16, 2003)

funny how these co incidences happen, I was on Cosfords web site yesterday

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/cosford/collections/aircraft/cosford-aircraft-collection.cfm


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## jasonm (Nov 22, 2003)

Some beachsitter uninterested in the BofB flypast...










And a blury one of the Eurofighter..


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