Public and the Vulcan First Flight

There’s only so many times the TVOC project can be discussed the same way. In lieu of an answer to the original question, I think this thread has run its course, don’t you? Otherwise this is the point where we all revert to name-calling and I think we would all prefer to avoid animosity. Happy to re-open if someone close to TVOC has an official answer.

BR
Moderator

Is this better as a problem for the police to handle off the cuff

It won’t be a problem if nobody knows…

…or would it be better for TVOC to say that the Vulcan should fly between date X and date X and arrange a safe viewing spot some distance away?

…and ‘waste’ more hard earned money, especially on Police presence to control and disperse the ones who don’t get a space in the viewing area….

At least that would give the public the chance to see her safely as opposed to a complete scramble outside Bruntingthorpe as people rush down as fast as they can into the area and cause traffic problems.

The exact reason in the first place that they aren’t telling anyone about the first flight.

My ‘bitterness’ is due to the way the project has been handled. If you want to know how much she costs to operate -how much to book her for an airshow….

…then get off your ar5e and phone them direct at the hangar. Ask for the likes of Denis Parker and he will tell you everything you need to know as opposed to ridiculous speculation.

Here’s a little common sense for you…

Is this in another post?? I think it’s been deleted…

Well, I brought (actually was coshed into buying by a rather pushy lady – saw her at RIAT and ran!) a raffle ticket for something or other at last year’s XM655 run, so I should be on the flight deck for the first flight…

Then again, I’d rather they took there time and didn’t try to fly this year if there’s any doubt – far too many historic aircraft are being lost in tragic circumstances.

Personally I don’t care whether the first flight is publicised or not, as long as she gets off the ground, does a circuit and comes back safe.

I’ve waited this long- another month won’t hurt me, and i’d rather be able to take my missus and explain what its all about during a display at an airshow rather than a quick circuit, regardless of its significance.

There seems to be a lot of jostling for premier position here from some forumites, along the lines of ‘I contributed more so I should be able to see her fly first, before the hoy paloy’. Isn’t this rather childish? Just be happy that there will be a first flight, and give those who have contributed hundreds of man hours of back breaking work over the last decade the opportunity to watch their work finally bear fruit. Surely it’s exclusively the engineers who should see her fly first, with the press, hangers-on and the general public coming in second.

Just my opinion.

David,

Would it be too much to ask you to use a little common sense here?

Do you really think that the entire flight, and everything around it, is going to be conducted under a ‘David Copperfield’ cloak of secrecy?

Do you think that we, the engineers are going to be signing confidentiality clauses, and denying all knowledge of working Vulcan bombers?

Have a word with yourself. Most of the reasons for the First Flight date being kept quiet, have been raised in this thread. Seriously, have you ever been to Bruntingthorpe and travelled on the surrounding roads? How long do you think they would take to become blocked? Do you imagine that only one or two people would wish to drive to Brunty to see 558 take to the skies? How well do you think that kind of a situation would go down with the local residents? What if things go U/S on the day, that’s an awful lot of angry people who’ve lost a days wages. Should you decide to come down, off your own back however, well that’ another matter entirely, and I think that as everyone else has pointed out, as soon as that entrance hatch shuts and 558 lines up, everyone will know about it one way or another.

The list goes on and on and on, without even broaching the safety aspect, but after another 16 hour day, I really haven’t got the energy to be entering a totally pointless argument, with someone who would appear to be letting his own personal bitterness, get in the way of completely legitimate and glaringly obvious reasons for TVOC’s silence on the issue.

For pitys sake, dry your eyes princess.

Flipflopman

Chin up flipflopman! Don’t let the ******s get to you. The majority of us can’t wait to see the wee beastie fly! Yeah, the management have made some errors, but don’t they always anywhere you go? The engineers (I know one of them, and I nearly was one myself had it not been for a Lancaster..) are as good as you will find anywhere. You guys are doing a top job. Keep it up, and ignore the party-poopers on here. The bitterness will be forgotten when the delta wedge flies over. (Do I qualify for a free raffle ticket?)

Here’s a little common sense for you . After ground runs the likelyhood is that first flight will be happening very shortly after . Undoubtedly Bruntingthorpe will be kept under very close scrutiny – the roads around the area are decidely rural but not what you would describe as the busiest roads in the world. So now you are in the situation that a first flight could concievably attract several hundred people very quickly being within short distance of Birmingham/Coventry/Leicester . Is this better as a problem for the police to handle off the cuff or would it be better for TVOC to say that the Vulcan should fly between date X and date X and arrange a safe viewing spot some distance away? Atleast that would give the public the chance to see her safely as opposed to a complete scramble outside Bruntingthorpe as people rush down as fast as they can into the area and cause traffic problems.
My ‘bitterness’ is due to the way the project has been handled. If you want to know how much she costs to operate -how much to book her for an
airshow – how she will be funded or indeed any other of a number of questions your treated as ‘unpatriotic’ and a ‘party pooper’

This is a multi million pound project that could easily consume another £10-15 million during it’s life – maybe the time for real answers is now if TVOC want her booked for any displays this year?

David,

Would it be too much to ask you to use a little common sense here?

Do you really think that the entire flight, and everything around it, is going to be conducted under a ‘David Copperfield’ cloak of secrecy?

Do you think that we, the engineers are going to be signing confidentiality clauses, and denying all knowledge of working Vulcan bombers?

Have a word with yourself. Most of the reasons for the First Flight date being kept quiet, have been raised in this thread. Seriously, have you ever been to Bruntingthorpe and travelled on the surrounding roads? How long do you think they would take to become blocked? Do you imagine that only one or two people would wish to drive to Brunty to see 558 take to the skies? How well do you think that kind of a situation would go down with the local residents? What if things go U/S on the day, that’s an awful lot of angry people who’ve lost a days wages. Should you decide to come down, off your own back however, well that’ another matter entirely, and I think that as everyone else has pointed out, as soon as that entrance hatch shuts and 558 lines up, everyone will know about it one way or another.

The list goes on and on and on, without even broaching the safety aspect, but after another 16 hour day, I really haven’t got the energy to be entering a totally pointless argument, with someone who would appear to be letting his own personal bitterness, get in the way of completely legitimate and glaringly obvious reasons for TVOC’s silence on the issue.

For pitys sake, dry your eyes princess.

Flipflopman

‘See no Vulcan’
‘Hear no Vulcan’

Rambo – Can’t quite see your ideas on the spectator front. Are any people on site going to have a confidentiality clause to see her fly? ‘The less people who see a **** up the better’ – why ? Will there be no visual recordings made in anyway of the flight ? Do you think that the BBC will say it’s fine to have no film of her first flight even though they have supported the project
a number of times when it was entering ‘flush’ cycle? What if a mishap happened ? Would they be banned from showing it?
Any idea that people who don’t support the project would spread rumours seems completely bizarre – it will be a documented flight conducted
by qualified pilots – it’s not an unmarked Spitfire flying unlicensed in the Australian outback.

“As for the Raffle, too right they feel they need to offer a reward to those who have supported this project throughout it’s up’s and downs over the years.”

They are only offering a ‘reward’ for the Princely sum of another £25. So, in actual fact, the reward for all their loyal supporters is to charge them £25 to enter a raffle to be present at the ‘OFFICIAL’ first flight should they be lucky enough to be drawn out of the hat.

Somehow, being charged £25 doesn’t actually seem to be much of a reward after all does it?

I wonder if those who were in charge of the disastrous fund raising campaign will have to enter the raffle? Just how many tickets will be allotted to ‘loyal supporters’ for any official event compared to how much will be granted to corporate hospitality?

I just hope they can get the damn thing in the air now and sustain it for a few years otherwise it will be the biggest disaster in the history of aircraft preservation, as well as a momentous disappointment to those who have loyally supported the project and those who have been employed in preparing the aircraft for flight.

Regards,

kev35.

allow me to amend my previous post. All aircraft coming out of a complete rebuild WILL have a certain amount of teething problems, be it a slightly low rpm reading on an engine or a leaking oleo leg from new seals bedding themselves in, (been there done that and got the t-shirt, several times around) no rebuild or restoration is THAT perfect (unless it’s sat in a museum). All of you bear in mind that this will be the first aircraft (officially) on the CAA Permit to Fly register that is catagorised as COMPLEX. There are numerous little snags that can be found after the first flight of such a complex rebuild most of which can not be found during the ground testing phase as the aircraft is not subjected to the same loading, stresses and strains as it is during flight. It only takes one uninformed person to see a small leak of fluid from somewhere and make more out of it than is necessary. Yes this aircraft is a comprehensive rebuild but she is a 30+ year old airframe at best, and all old aircraft suffer from the same ailments and she is easily 3 times the size of most rebuilt aircraft today, a dinky Spitty she is not. Despite any air and ground crew’s professionalism and experience the first test flight is always a nerve racking experience and the least people that witness any **** up big or small the better. yes it may still filter out but atleast the doom sayers and no nothings cann’t witness it first hand and start completely false rumours.

Fill the thing with new or refurb parts, screw the life out of the functionals and wave sods law at it all you like on the day 558 will only be cleared to fly when the engineering team, the pilots and the CAA are convinced that it’s fit and gremlins or what ever you like to call em are the hardest thing too remove fully from any complex piece of machinery so expect them to pop out at any time of their choosing for sure, hence the reason no prior info will be published on first flight along with the already published reasoning that the TVOC team do not need thousands of members of the public flocking there on the day.

As for the Raffle, too right they feel they need to offer a reward to those who have supported this project throughout it’s up’s and downs over the years.

Don’t worry so, when it happens we will know all about it within hours.

eh? I’ve worked on more restos than I can remember & that’s not how it works. When an aircraft is “straight out of rebuild” there shouldn’t be more than 1 or 2 minor squawks unless the guys doing the work were a bunch of clueless idiots… Who the heck do you work for?:eek:

Unless he’s referring to airline mechanics….! I’ve lost count of the number of times we have spent ages on an A or C check, fixing known snags, changing components (Airbus Undercarriage legs mainly!), only to have something completely different break just before its test flight. I hate sod’s law.

Apparently at Glasgow this week, the techies in a certain national airline hangar were changing an engine as a matter of routine, when the crane snapped. Oops – CFM all over the floor….

I’m sure the post by Rambo is just an exaggeration of what I’ve said above.. well, I hope it is. Remind me to never fly in an aircraft which has been ‘restored’ by his company though…. Most snags in that level of maintenance should be discovered and fixed prior to flight. I’m pretty confident that the only things amiss when 558 flies will be silly things like bulbs, maybe an instrument too (bloody tempramental things….). Faults can occur any time, just like DB said, but after such painstaking work, I would not expect much to happen during the flight.

This is an aircraft straight out of a complete rebuild, therefore full of snags and gremlins….no matter how good the engineering team it’s just a fact of life.

eh? I’ve worked on more restos than I can remember & that’s not how it works. When an aircraft is “straight out of rebuild” there shouldn’t be more than 1 or 2 minor squawks unless the guys doing the work were a bunch of clueless idiots… Who the heck do you work for?:eek:

A fault can occur on any test flight or indeed normal flight. If the press were there and she had a mishap it’s as newsworthy as if something happens when they are not. Do you seriously think it wouldn’t be reported?
As for pressure on aircrew – they are professional people who do their job well . If you have two thousand people people watching at Bruntingthorpe it’s the same as having 100,000 people waiting for her at Duxford – she is either servicable or not.

One rumour I heard (believe it or not) was that Culdrose had offered the Vulcan it’s airfield for conducting test flights…

Now of course its only a rumour but Culdrose is away from crowded airspace 😉

the first flight probably won’t be the official unveilling first flight, for a number of reasons. This is an aircraft straight out of a complete rebuild, therefore full of snags and gremlins….no matter how good the engineering team it’s just a fact of life. Can you imagine the quantity of egg on face should say the gear malfunction or an engine problem occur or, god forbid, the aircraft crash. The last thing the owners and organisers are going to want is to look like a bunch of idiots infront of the world’s press and the attendant spectators. You can imagine the headlines now ‘Vexed Vulcan!’, ‘White Elephant of Brunty’, ‘Busted Bomber’ etc..etc. Better the first few flights be carried out in peace and quiet, without undue pressure on air and ground crew to make her servicable as quickly as possible, at the cost of safety and future servicability.

A public first flight could be a publicity disaster if it failed to happen on the day, more so if loads of spectators are there.

Any aircraft, fresh out of heavy maintenance, can throw up all sorts of snags, big and small, that could prevent it flying on any particular day, or the next, or the next. And the weather might add its own spanner to the equation.

I am sure the engineers will work to the usual deadline of it flying when its ready and not before.

So long as something loud roars in the night, and lights twinkle, everyone is happy.

Except the CAA who issue the permit to fly based on Visual Flight Rules Only, so no night flying.

I heard they will do the first flight at night, taking off on just two of the four engines to keep the noise down, and not alert freeloading spectators

😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

Could it not be the case that there will be a post-restoration check flight with a minimum of publicity, and then a public unveiling with “official” first flight with the media present and the raffle winners as VIPs? Seems logical to me.

William

That kinda thing has happened at Dx more than a few times….