A restored Vulcan aircraft takes to the skies.
I know people who flew it for real. They’ll be well pleased.
SPECTRE or RAF? 
I took some of my pupils to a Midlands airfield where we saw a Vulcan bomber (grounded).
There was an old guy there as a guide, who’d flown them in the war.
I always preferred the look of the Victor myself but the Vulcan’s name probably helped it become more of a household name during the Cold War.
I always like the Vulcan-it was designed in the early '50’s, but still looks so modern. Must have been a chore flushing and cleaning all of those hydraulic lines-and replacing all of those natural rubber seals! No doubt they had plenty of spare parts.
I’d like to see that and a Concorde flying in formation some time relatively soon.
That is awesome. I saw a one at the RAF Museum…what a beautiful machine.
Jeremy Clarkson had a Lightning in his garden for a short while, if I suddenly became stupendously rich I always had a hankering for a Victor or a Vulcan out the back 
Reading the Wiki article on the Vulcan, an unusual fact cropped up.
The Vulcan, with a crew of 5, only had ejection seats for the pilot and co-pilot.
This might not seem strange. Obviously, in the case of catastrophe, the pilot and his co would hit the bail-out alarm and retain (or attempt to) control of the aircraft while the rest of the crew exited, and then eject.
Kind of like what WW2 bomber pilots would do. Keep the plane straight and level while the crew bailed out, and then be the last to leave.
According to the article, however, it didn’t always work out that way.
The pilots would punch out, leaving the crew to fend for themselves.
This was subject to much criticism.
I’ve always liked the elegance of British designs from that period because of the way they embedded the engines within the wing roots. The Comet airliner looks good to me for the same reason.
It was a safety and maintenance nightmare to build things that way, of course…
I watched one doing low level manuevers at the Toronto CNE airshow many years ago. Very impressive!
Outstanding.
I was checking out the wiki article, too. Interesting to note that it’s maiden flight was four months after the B-52’s.
One of the links at the bottom of the wiki page is for the Handley Page Victor. Another interesting design. The entry has a hair-raising account of it going vertically (!!) supersonic.
In the later vulcans they were working on a design to make the whole crew compartment eject. Unfortunately they never implemented it.
As seen in this film footage. Four men dead, apart from the pilot and co-pilot, who managed to eject.
Well, as far as I know, everyone who flew the Vulcan for SPECTRE is dead.
Helluva retirement plan they have…
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