I’ve been messing around editing my photos from the last couple of weekends today, so I had a quick bash at the photo in the opening post:

From memory you cannot stand under the bomb door on XL318, simply skirt around the perimeter.

Its not destruction.

I was under the impression that things had to be cut on XL318, rather than simply unbolted. I could be wrong! VTTS seem to be claiming that 558 cannot be shipped out by road, which I read as meaning that some irreversible steps have to be taken to get a Vulcan into that many pieces.

As you suggest, now that 558 is simply a ground runner (on paper) it is no longer that special, which raises the ‘so what?’ question. For example, I do wonder how many people go to taxying events at Bruntingthorpe who did not see these aircraft fly the first time. At the moment you are lucky that there are a lot of blokes who saw a Lightning take off vertically at ‘Waddo’ in the ’70s and ’80s, and who have a soft spot (sometimes bordering on the rabid) for Lightnings. In a couple of decades that number will diminish, and yet there will apparently be a steady demand for 558 taxying runs by that point?

I’m ambivalent. I’m not going to travel any great distance to see 558 taxi. I saw her twice; both times at the Ayr/Prestwick show. On the second occasion I did the underwing tour, paid for some merchandise and all of that. I chatted to the VTTS crew about the problems with the undercarriage, and although they seemed pretty cagey at times they seemed professional enough. Later in the day I felt and saw 558 come howling up the runway and take off. She then came back, gave us a little wing waggle and then disappeared over the horizon. Apparently this was the last time she ever took off from a runway other than the one at Doncaster I’m quite happy to live with that as my lasting memory of 558. Two good displays on two good days, with a whole slew of elements that cannot ever be replicated with a taxi run.

Some of that stuff must have a collectors’ value?

What does ‘potentially scrapped’ mean?

It is the Schrödinger’s cat of Spitfires.

Put it out of it’s misery – lets not see the slow decline – break it up now & save all this speculation, wishes & hot air.

This was a suggestion I made in another thread, half jokingly. The strongest argument I’ve seen against the scrapping route, beyond the emotive, is that the Heritage Lottery Funding requires the aircraft to remain in one piece. However I’m not sure exactly what would happen if VTTS, strapped for cash, decided to part 558 out to raise funds. My thoughts, as per elsewhere, is that VTTS can prove their usefulness post-flying-era by helping to keep other ground-running and static Vulcans in good nick. They apparently helped out with the white Vulcan at Woodford, so the precedent is there. Presumably they have quite an impressive cache of parts, tools and knowledge, so why squander it all away on one example of a ground-runner that his largely hidden from the public gaze? My other suggestion was to quickly but carefully dismantle 558. Firstly this saves on space, keeping overheads down. Secondly it gives you even more parts and materials to assist the other remaining Vulcans with. Everything else can be flogged to Vulcan obsessives (the type that stalk ex-Vulcan pilots at the VTTS stand at air displays to get all their signatures in wee books). Would they pay £200 for a presentation-mounted compressor blade from an Olympus? There must be any number of small, dispensable parts in XH558 that could be tarted up and sold off as decorative merchandise.

Naturally I’ve copped a lot of flack for these opinions, but surely it isn’t that much dafter than taking on a Canberra project and then quickly giving up on the whole charade.

This page in particular smacks of desperation: http://www.vulcantothesky.org/how-to-help.html Recycle your old mobile phones and printer cartridges to keep a Vulcan languishing away in a shed in Doncaster? Sign me up!