My issue stems merely from the fact that there seems to be a perpetual ‘never happy’ brigade. I’m of the camp that would rather see a historic aircraft flying in an inaccurate paint scheme than see one in a wholly accurate scheme relegated to the back corner of a dimly lit museum somewhere. In an ideal world every historic aircraft would be flying in the correct scheme, but that is the fairly small cherry on the top of a complex and relatively rarely baked cake. The fantasist in me wishes that VTTS painted 558 in anti-flash white, with a black radome, for the last year of flying. That would have, in my opinion, looked better than the high-gloss all over camo scheme. However the difference is that 558 flew, howled and inspired thousands. There are static and (nominally) ground-running Vulcans with better paint schemes out there, but they inspire a tenth of the number of people.

In fairness I’m irked by the scheme NH904 (G-FIRE) wears in the US: