Robert Edward has already posted this link this morning 😉

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?135427-Forgotten-airfield-article

Nice pic j_jza80 🙂

They were made aware of the omission (by several people) when the list was first published. The omission was referred to in the next trust ‘Newsbytes’ on June 2nd: http://mxm.mxmfb.com/rsps/m/QeWlMfVzPrmkzEzaQvjGVAGHtOs-AsTTwDN4H9MrxS4:

Thank you to the readers who kindly informed us we had missed one complete airframe off our list on Friday. That is a Victor that sits in an exhibition hall at Duxford. Our apologies for the oversight and this is now duly listed and will be highlighted when we show the list again in an upcoming newsletter. Duxford was already on our list to overfly due to a Vulcan there, so at least no major change of plan is needed. Once again, our apologies.

I don’t know why they haven’t updated the list on the V-Force Tour page though.

They are what in the diecast model world would be termed a ‘re-issue’; they have been built to massage the egos of half a dozen obscenely rich people, and will rankle with many in the historic car world for diminishing the standing of the original survivors, in much the same way that the new build/replica Spitfires do.

I can’t see Gillespie finding the Electra while he has a hole in his backside. Every one of the claims that they have made over the years can be torn to shreds (and indeed, always have been) with a little elementary research and knowledge.

David Billings may well be wrong, but in my opinion, his arguments for the real whereabouts of the wreck are infinitely more convincing.

….. access to Bruntingthorpe really isn’t bad]

Whilst the Vulcan was undergoing restoration, VTTS wanted to have the hanger open for paying visitors to come a see the aircraft as it was being restored, but were very restricted in when they were allowed to do so due to the nature and confidentiality of some of the uses the airfield was hired out for. They were limited to just a few Sundays. Access at Finningley is much more frequent, and if the academy plan bears fruit, access will probably be better still.

Is the academy plan going to work when young people could go thirty five miles up the road to :http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-29711524

Seeing the way Kirmingtons operations have declined over the years, I have often wondered whether it would continue to survive as an airport. It isn’t exactly throng with traffic. The training facility recently opened there, along with the new Coastguard/Search and Rescue operation being located there may be its saviour (or may just be a last ditch effort to keep the airport viable. Of course, would potential trainees from the well populated area around Doncaster and Sheffield want to travel an extra 30 miles if a similar facility becomes available at Finningley? Are the proposals for the Finningley academy conflicting with Kirmington or complementary?

Agreed that VTTS have made it pretty clear for several years that they see the future for 558 being at Finningley. One would probably have to deliberately avoid reading any of the newsletters, press releases, and indeed what has been posted on web forums to think otherwise.

Regarding the suggestion that someone made regarding Scampton – it is still an active RAF base, so there would be little or no access, and therefore little or no opportunity for events/visitors to raise the money to keep 558 in ground running condition (I was also under the impression that the runway at Scampton is no longer capable of handling the weight of larger aircraft?) The point about the Finningley proposal is that 558 would become a centrepiece of a commercial venture that would itself generate much of the revenue needed for comtinuing maintenance of the Vulcan.

I don’t quite understand the fixation that some have with Bruntingthorpe – an airfield with no historic relevance to Vulcans other than its temporary resting place and site of its restoration. Among the reasons for the move away from Bruntingthorpe in the first place, one reason was the lack of accessibility for visitors/fundraising activities – Bruntingthorpe is a working airfield and due to some of the uses that it is put to, it is often not feasible to allow visitors on-site (VTTS had some difficulty in scheduling hanger visits for supporters and enthusiasts, a problem which is much less apparent at Finningley). I don’t see the future of Bruntingthorps as being particularly assured (indeed, likely to be less certain than the future of Finningley). I also don’t see much possibility of getting hanger space at either Bruntingthorpe or Elvington – Elvington would already have a hanger if it was possible to raise sufficient money, and in all honesty I can’t really see how the arrival of XH558 would significantly improve the prospects for fundraising. The hanger at Bruntingthorpe is otherwise (and profitably) occupied, and I think raising funds for a new building there would be even less likely than anywhere else (at least in part due to the restricted and intermittent permitted access for visitors).

From the comments posted so far regarding the proposals for the future for XH558 at Finningley, I get the definite inmpression that most of those commenting do not have the slightest clue about what is actually proposed – it does not rely on visiting enthusiasts and parties of schoolchildren ;). To those who think the proposal is not viable and has no support, I think you will find that the partners in the Academy plans (including Peel Airports) don’t seem to agree. I would suggest that anyone who hasn’t read through the published proposal should do so before making comments which just make themselves look foolish.

So are we really saying that industry doesn’t have the expertise to carry out the fully-documented inspection of a decades-old engine?

From what has been published, I think that, in a nutshell, that is pretty much what Rolls Royce have said.

When the engine issue occurred, we were told that was the new flying life-limiting problem

Basically, that is the current situation – it is engine life, together with the increasing lack of availability of people with the required skills to do specialist maintenance and repair work which is bringing flying to a close. Even with more engine life available, XH558 is now getting well beyond the airframe fatigue life of any other flying Vulcan, and is beyond the fatigue life of the fatigue test airframe that stayed at Woodford. As it gets further on, it becomes increasingly difficult to predict where fatigue failures in the airframe may occur, and the potential risk of a mid air failure as a result doesn’t bear thinking about.

Over the course of the last 7 seasons, discussion with RR and making adjustments to the way in which the recorded throttle movements are converted into cycles has already resulted in being able to extend the usage of the engines beyond what would have been the case if they still used the same calculations that were used during the first season. Together with modifying the display pattern to reduce the number of cycles used up during a display, this has enabled XH558 to display this season, when it had seemed likely that 2014 might have been its last year.

It will be sad to no longer have a flying Vulcan, but its preservation in retirement will be a challenge no matter where it goes or what setting it is in.