Vulcan's at risk

Just found this site.!

Have look at the state of 391 in these pics..>!!!! 😮

http://www.museum-explorer.org.uk/show.php?page=exhibit&q=search^choice=A^textfield=vulcan%20xl391&e=1645&t=5

Exactly my point Peter. We should be having a discussion about what we can do to save any parts and if anyone knows of any future plans put in place with the aircraft rather than just bitching about there condition.

Sorry about the Lanc bit, just putting across my point. 🙂

On the subject of Lancs being scrapped I had a chat with a bloke today who said that one of his saddest memories was having to scrap a Lanc called ‘Empress of Russia’ at Cranwell. If only we could have been more constructive back then. :rolleyes:

Norwhich Vulcan looks in really good shape and is a tribute to the work by their volunteers! It is great to see that they havetaken the time to seal up the cockpit canopy which keeps out the water…

DGH….
Answer me this then.
Being invovled with aircraft since I was a wee boy at home in England, Why is it that most planes that get scrapped are simply pummled to death.. You dont see much getting removed for use on other surviving aircraft in the way of airframe parts etc.. I am sure there is lots of reuseable bits on 391 if she ends up going this way…

As far as lancs getting scrapped, bite your tongue!! This should never ever happen!!!

It is better to try and fail than not to try at all.

If we take the negative look of the way this thread has gone then why don’t we take it through to it’s conclusion. The fuel we use for these planes we like so much isn’t going to be around that much longer so why try and get some of these planes airbourne ( I’m not talking about Vulcans here by the way ) there only going to be grounded in the end. Then if we try and preserve a bit of all our heritage for many, many, many years to come were going to run out of room. So there will have to be a cull and yes it will include Spitfires, Lancs etc. Thinking like this achieves nothing.

The reason we preserve these aircraft is for our own enjoyment so lets just enjoy them while we have them and not give out negative thoughts to the people trying in there spare time to keep them here. Lets offer some constructive thoughts like, can we do anything to save it, can we get a plan together so when it comes to dismantling it we make sure all the usuable parts go to a good home and the scrap perhaps gets recycled into keyrings or something that the museum can sell to raise funds. I always think its better to be constructive rather than taking the easy option of knocking volunteers.

The Blackpool Vulcan’s paintwork looks not unlike that of Duxford’s Victor…

Here is a couple of pic’s taken last week of the Norwich Vulcan. She is in a far better condition!

Wow she looks even worse now. any more?????

Time to put it out of its misery, I think.

And here are the rest. There was quite an extensive trickle of water below that open cocpit window, sorry they arent very big but i cant seem get them larger it says file to large. Anyone wants a copy pm me

Try saving your photo at 72 dpi, 700 pixels wide, and if you have Photoshop, about number 8 quality when saving as a .jpg file. You probably know that the file limit for posting photos is 100 kb, I guess your pic is about 18 kb, which suits dial-up people, but is a bit small for details!

XL391 18/9/04

trying to get these up as big as possible heres the first anyways.

It is apparent from these anyway the level of decay that has set in.

Also i would like to point out that there were quite a few (10+) people there taking photo’s while i was there.

David.
Some good points there. I think the idea was to get one at a bargain and worry about looking after it lately. Although some groups are doing their hardest to look after their vulcan look at Goose Bay as an e.g… Hopefully in the next couple of years we will see more vulcans getting a new coat of paint and/or a roof over their heads?!

You do have to ask if the Vulcan is actually having a neagtive impact on preservation. Whilst it could well have attracted many people through the gates -does it still attract a similar number ? The simple reality is that if we
aim to acquire aircraft in the almost certain knowledge that they will suffer a long terminal decline that simply doesn’t equate to preservation at all.
Whilst the aircraft was indeed ‘cheap’ by 1980’s standards could possibly the money have been spent on something else? If I recall correctly from Mod
tender prices £5K could have probably bought three or four aircraft that were
more sustainable .
As for the long term – how many museums are going to be able counter the negative publicity when the bulldozers go in on the corroded Vulcans.
Lastly as for doing my bit – well I am involved in preservation so I feel as qualified as anyone else to comment.

i’ll take the camera then, post them later today or tommorow

If you are having a pop then look again, that is not what I said. If you have made a success of it at Sunderland then I, as an enthusiast and as a journalist, am very happy. However, I would bet that you have invested way more than the £5grand it cost to acquire and that is where many people went wrong.

I have never said they should have all been scrapped, just that some scrappings are inevitable if the logistics of preserving the airframe are not understood at the time of acquisition.

And in some cases they clearly were not. This should not be a surprise to anyone.

Melvyn Hiscock
Owner and restorer of Rearwin Cloudster G-EVLE that has currently cost me well in excess of ten Vulcans at 1983 rates.

Armchairs not included.

Troy..
What is the status of 319?? I get the impression from here that she is in very poor condition. Is this so? I remember James and Matt looking after her in 2002 but haven’t heard anything since then??

Ah…… the old “Vulcan rotting thread” again…..

Having been involved in the running of NEAM at Sunderland for many years I can only look at this thread and see the usual gripes about preserving aircraft from armchair enthusiasts with my usual despair.

AFAIR the Vulcan in Sunderland has been there for approx 21 years and has helped to bring in thousands of people who may not have visited aircraft museums , thus helping to contribute to the preservation of many other airframes. Bad thing ?????? NO.

At most 30 people in the North East ensured that a piece of aviation heritage was available to all in this region for a significant amount of time – Would we prefer to have seen XL319 scrapped in 1983 and not used to promote aviation and preservation in the North East ? Just on the off chance it couldn’t be preserved for longer ??? Judging by some of the comments here yes we would. £5k for an aircraft delivered to your door – yep we can’t guarantee that it will last more than 25 years so we should ensure that people can’t see it at all – scrap it straight away – I don’t think so!

It’s easy to take a pop at people after they have tried – thank god people do try as our aviation heritage would be in a much worse state if they didn’t.

From over here in Sweden I am getting the impression that there is some monster called “Health and Safety” roaming the UK that is slowly strangling everything that is enjoyable!

Your so right and its gone beyond all reason.
Still in our local area some idiot got £2000 for walking into a road cone in broad daylight and the thing had a bright orange flashing light on it.
His injury was a small cut but he used Health and Safety against the company doing the work and got all that cash.

I think company’s and council’s and Govt are worried about more farcical claims so try to remove risk from every little thing.

From over here in Sweden I am getting the impression that there is some monster called “Health and Safety” roaming the UK that is slowly strangling everything that is enjoyable!
Isn’t there a brave knight somewhere that will slay it? Perhaps this is a topic for General Discussion, but I am prompted to mention it by your post, andrewman.

Yeah XM603 the Woodford Vulcan.

All its systems and engines work but some fool from the Health and Safety group stopped it being run on safety grounds.

It was unable to taxi as the nose wheel steering broke at some point since it arrived at Woodford back in 82.

Their was a program on Discovery Wings the other night that showed a few seconds of it doing an engine run at Woodford a few years back.

It was last run in 2002-2003 and their are rumors it will end up at Manchester airport.