Call me naive, but what possible reason would they have to ask people not to attend the final landings apart from safety?

Cost – mentioned this many posts back. There are no safety issues. It simply means that the Police have complained that a large crowd would require more resources, and presumably indicated that VTTS would be expected to pay for them. The reality is that the resources required would be a couple of cop cars for a couple of hours. There is nothing to police other than the perimeter road to the south of the runway threshold. Spectators only park/stand here or on the disused old Bawtry Road. So the whole storm is over a small stretch of road that could be policed easily if they wanted to bother policing it. Reality is that there has never been enough people here to bother. Same applied to the last flight on Sunday. Why would the two flights this coming weekend be any different to every other flight that has taken place since the whole saga began? The only possible increase in spectators might be the very last flight, but even then it’s hard to imagine how crowds could increase by such an amount that the Police couldn’t handle them. It’s ludicrous. The result of this nonsense is that VTTS is clearly withholding the date/time of the last flight and my guess is that they’ll announce it maybe half an hour before it happens. And all for no good reason. The safety/policing issue is a big, fat red herring that people have foolishly believed. In my view (shared by countless others) there is no good reason why the last flight of all shouldn’t be publicised so that the people who have paid for it can see it. If VTTS wilfully hide the event then shame on them.

It was quite comical that despite all the fuss made by VTTS, Finningley was no busier than usual yesterday. The usual people were parked on the perimeter road and on the disused road, but there were no more people than usual. As last week, we managed to stand in splendid isolation for three hours until a couple of locals decided to walk over for a look. The situation seems to be that very few serious (ie- followers of VTTS etc.) enthusiasts actually go to Finningley. The serious photographers certainly don’t waste their time on the perimeter roads, as thery’re pretty useless for getting good photos (unless the aircraft is landing from the south, which happens only rarely). The photographers go to the places where one can actually get a decent view. So if this is the case, I’m not even sure that the people parked on the road sides know anything about the pleas from VTTS. I would assume that most of them are just casual spectators who turn-up for amusement. Certainly most of them sound like they are – with kids running around asking when Concorde is going to land, etc. Certainly no sign of the Police “locking down” the area! As expected, the VTTS statements are just nonsense intended to influence or mislead. Unfair and unnecessary. But I still assume it is just a hint of how they will treat the last flight. Isn’t it just a terrible shame that an event that should be celebrated and seen by all who would like to see it, looks like being conducted in secret for absolutely no good reason.

We are talking reality.
Wasn’t referring to your comment David, I was referring to some of the previous posts 🙂

I guess the only serious plan in the pipeline is to get Shackleton WR963 back in the air so I’m sure a lot of Vulcan fans will be transferring their affections to this slightly older Avro machine. The folks at Coventry seem very confident and able, and they certainly have a great deal of serious engineering and technical support coming their way, so hopefully their efforts will result in success. Personally, I’m also worried about the future of the CAF airframes. Mr Collet seems keen to ensure they go to good homes but whether they will all fly again, or if they fly overseas, is another question. The past couple of times I’ve been to Coventry the Canberra is sat out on the grass looking distinctly unloved, and the Twin Pioneer is partially dismantled, looking virtually abandoned. The Meteors were still active and hangared though. I hope the Canberra survives the sell-off and returns to flight and hopefully the Twin Pin too. Have to wonder what will happen to the Meteors. It would be awful if they followed Winston’s path to Australia.

Brilliant stuff 🙂

If people are so worried about the financial side of the dealings,make the accusations and take them to court.

They’re not so worried. You’ve simply not read the previous posts properly 😉

Well, to be fair, there is evidence. For example the money taken by Robert Pleming is known – it is in the accounts. Some of the expense claims (some amounting to thousands of pounds) were almost comical, had it not been for the fact that the money came from donations. But the fuss over the mis-use of funds slowly disappeared when the Vulcan started appearing at air shows. Evidently, people either thought that the prospect of seeing the Vulcan fly was far more interesting, or they thought that the issues over the misuse of funds might be better overlooked if it meant that XH58 did at least fly. Either way, it doesn’t mean that a lot of us have simply forgotten, nor does it mean that there is no evidence.

Keep going Charlie, you may as well illustrate precisely what I said a couple of posts back 🙂

I agree hampden. As you can see from the above, my last post resulted in just one useful reply from TonyT before the usual schoolboy comments appeared. Mentioning this will of course result in yet more equally childish responses, and so the cycle continues. I just wish the people that make these comments would understand that they do not impress the recipient, nor do they impress anybody else. I sometimes imagine that they write this stuff and picture hundreds of readers nodding in agreement. Of course the reality is that everyone ignores the comments because they simply see “adults” trying to insult each other like children. The result is that the readers simply ignore the thread and go elsewhere. It happens repeatedly, so that every interesting subject is eventually destroyed by these people. We could have had an interesting debate about the Vulcan here and maybe the actual enthusiasts (as opposed to the tiresome people mentioned previously) could have come together to form a common view on this subject, which might then have had some influence on what is really happening. Let’s see if we can have some relevant comments now perhaps? Or is it back to more snipes from the children?