Why not?

Cos I worked very closely with him for 10 years and saw exactly what he did/went through and believe me you would not like how it affected his health and his life for those years….. the man is a much Maligned Leader ….

So all of you get off his back…

I was reliably informed the crew get paid for their flying and i am sure the chief pilot was in the breakdown of costs for the tax returns

I don’t know who your informant is?… but….if I remember right?…. Aircrew are not salaried, but on EX’s only or were..and according to last accounts only one person was paid in excess of £60k…. and also as I said in a previous post…..

I wouldn’t do his job for any less…

That totally depends on the extent of an engine failure, I have seen turbines having chopped their way out… and they took out major structures and controls on their bid for freedom..
And trust me I have crapped myself when it happened to me, one of the most horrific runs ever, luckily it was on the ground, I was lucky, most went out the back, but I couldn’t read a guage in front of me, the throttle by that point were a desk ornament, we had fire alarms going off left right and centre, my other one was at night, and parts of the turbine emerged out of the jet pipe in a big rotating ball of flame, followed by a compressor stall and a huge flame out of the intake, I was a contender for the 100 meters, only matched by the guy in the cockpit who broke the long jump record at the same time …

have you seen the images of one turbine buried in the other engine having chopped its way through the fuselage? A turbine failure is not forgiving.. On the ground we struggled to deal with it… In flight it’s a gamble I wouldn’t like to roll the dice on.

Bet that was a 300 series?
Didn’t they have a tendancy to do that, and isn’t that why they were downrated from 22000 to 18000?

202s (558s) are far safer and are less likely to a turbine burst than the 300s unless caused by FOD ingestion and/or engine surge which can happen to any jet engine regardless of age/usage

Denis -what RAF apprentices are you referring to ? The apprentice scheme that I am aware of ended in the early 1990’s . Certainly a gentleman I am aware of who worked on the project on secondment was serving RAF and not under any training. .

We had six electrical apprentices the were earmarked for Typhoon and we were asked if they could come and learn about old aircraft wirering practice and helped us rewire the entire wing trailing edge….. PFCUs etc..

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Regards funding and pulling on people’s emotional heartstrings – probably justifiable if it saves lives . However if its just to squeeze money for an aircraft for which the business plan failed and the begging bowl is the only way forward
it makes many people feel uncomfortable.

Sorry….. this is a dog eat dog world …. if it gets you your funding against another charity I see no problem…. as to the ethics thats another problem but there is a choice which can only be made by the donor

I don’t agree with you there,XH558 or ‘558is as individual to this Vulcan as my name is to me as a human.

It’s been given by those who wish to as a sign of affection, and why not? It sounds an awful lot better than just the Vulcan, which after all is a type name not an individual.

To me she’ll always be ‘558 or XH558.

Thats the point…

She is Vulcan XH558

XH588 was a Handley Page Victor K1A,

Charlie – who exactly paid for it ? The HLF gave a massive chunk which came from Lottery money -so it was as much my money as yours .

OMG.. it’s amasing what you read laying in a hospital bed,

1] £2.73milloin which once wagered on the Lottery is not yours
2] £5.27million from various oem support and the good old British General Public
3] No finatial support from MOD, HMG or anywhere else official

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! Couple that with RAF ground trade assistance and we then have tax payers money as well so it pretty much blows the notion that it was only Vulcan enthusiast money out of the water. .

No RAF support at all other than the guys themselves and a quid-pro-quo training opertunity for RAF apprentices

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Then we have the ‘pussy footing’ around bit that means that each year ] we have the nonsensical threats of her having to be sold abroad because they cannot afford to keep her flying . Its great for people who enjoy the cliffhangers
of will they or won’t they do it but to those who are engaged in the serious business of keeping complex aircraft in the air its frightening to see .

A ligitamate marketing tool possibly?…… and it worked didn’t it?

Like someone else said elseware…” How many starving, pot bellied african kids do you see on the successful charity appeals on the TV” would they be so successfull without these stark images?

Same thing but in different slant

now I know I’m gonna get clobbered for this :Diablo:

When I was in the RAF an engine in a MVP bag fully inhibited and up to date had a service life on Calendar before requiring reoverhauling at either 10 or 15 years as laid down. Think it was 15 max

Last RAF flight was in 1992 so any engines in MVP bags would have been in storage at the very least 21 years well outside the Storage life limits.

Therefore the engines fitted were also outside the original MVP bag limits we had in the RAF having been bagged up for 25 years, hence my comment that Rolls must have allowed them to fly past what was the RAF calendar life accepted limits..

Maybe the MVP bag limits were an RAF thing not RR….All I can say is that at all the meetings I was at, there was never any suggestion, that I heard. of engine life extension, all they stipulated, as far as I am aware .was for a boroscopic inspection, particularlty around the middle main bearing area. In fact as I said before they took the 2000 flying hours to a number of throttle cycles [number per engine I can’t remember] which reduced the allowed in-service time considerably

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Still they can always pack the intakes with Silica Gel and store it that way…. Oh hang on the muppets already tried that one..
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Naughty:) After my time I’m afraid…. don’t really know the details

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No it wouldn’t be but it would be horrendously expensive, storing it as active to be dragged for a few special shows as said again would be a none starter, you would still need to maintain it, and who the heck is going to sponsor something that flies once in a blue moon..
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Not relevant to what I said, guess I misunderstood what you said and as I too think this hot storage is a total no no

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Far better to fly the remaining season, shove it on display somewhere and retire the gravy train. Then let someone else take on the responsibility of looking after it.. There is no need to be shelling out stupid wages to people once its grounded, there are plenty of examples all over the UK maintained and looked after for a pittance of what is spent on this… Me I would like to see it back at Bruntingthorpe kept active running up and down the runway and looked after by volunteers.

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Due to my CA with VTTST I can’t coment on anything VTTST…but as a BAH volunteer myself I want her back.. after all I did have her, electrically from 1994-1999:)