Loud and low...

[paul the grenade]

in the 80's the vulcans were based around lincoln at scampton and waddington and would regularly do low passes over my house. there is a small car park near the runway at scampton the my friends and i would ride up to and watch the vulcans come in to land. they looked like they were onlt 50 feet above you when they flew over to land. FANTASTIC STUFF!
Paul.

[siegfreid]

A quick update on the Vulcan XH558 . Two of the engines were damaged beyond repair whilst it was taxiiing for take off . It would appear that two bags of silica gel dessicant [used to keep the engines dry when not in use] were not removed prior to start up . These were ingested & blew the turbine blades . The Vulcan uses the Olympus 202 engines & these are VERY difficult to find in signed off for flight condition . The only two spares that the Vulcan trust have are now being prepared for fitting & let's hope all goes well .

[V40]

Siegfreid, anymore updates on that Vulcan (XH558)? Mike, if she has to can she make it on takeoff and landing on just two engines?

[siegfreid]

V40 . No more news at this time but I will update the thread when I hear anything , we just need to keep our fingers crossed ! I don't think there has ever been a situation when a Vulcan had to take off using only two engines & I doubt it would be possible . They can certainly fly on two & landing would not be a problem assuming they were straight forward flame outs & there were no other problems . There were numerous reports of in flight engine failures during the 'planes service life & some of these , sadly , resulted in fatalities to the crew . One of the problems with the Vulcan & the other "V" bombers was that only the pilot & co-pilot had ejection seats so the other crew members had to jump from escape hatches & this was impossible if the 'plane was in a spin or flying at low level . Mike

[glevum]

It is fixed and was at RIAT last weekend.

It is at Farnborough this week.

[siegfreid]

Thanks for that , Glevum . Good news indeed !

[V40]

Mike, sadly that was the case with the B-47 and the early B-52's. On the early 52s the pilot and the co-pilot could eject, the rest had to bail out. Now it seems that everybody inside can eject with some of the crew deep inside her would eject downward. The better set-ups were the capsules such as was the case with the B-58, XB-70, and the F-111s. The Ardvarks was an entirley crew capsule and self maintaning. It could float supposedly in the worst of waves, but didn't cool you in the summer or warm you in the winter. I have a complete list of the crew compartment's survival equipment. Talk about over doing it.

It is however good to hear she is flying again. She doesn't come to the USA at all does she? Sad if true. I still have the memories of the one at the Dayton airshow. The one that was there almost made me sick because there was no reprieve from the noise as she banked and turned on what seemed like hours instead of the 15 minutes she had. Probably THE loudest for me was a 52 that was also at the show with the 105 third.

A couple of days ago when the POTUS PITA was up in Cleveland and Romney was down in Akron, all day I saw some F-15s (C-Model) and F-16s. The jets didn't leave till dark. Now one time I was driving to Cleveland for some reason and President Bush was in Cleveland I got to see some Appache's, Ch-53's (two or three) w/Marines in them and all F15s then. It is quite a show to see all that going on.

[siegfreid]

V40 . No , it won't being going to America ! It only has a certificate to fly in UK airspace .