Avro Vulcan - XH558

I am a newbie when it comes to military aircraft. I started learning about warbirds after one of the spotters from across the Atlantic Ocean made fun of me for calling the Boeing Stearman a "biplane". ;) Since then, I've been doing my very best to have as much enthusiasm for some of these modern day testosterone charged "flying coke cans" as I have for the comparatively "sluggish" but graceful large capacity airliners.

World War II and the Cold War presented a set of aircraft that seem to be a compromise between power and grace. For this entry, I would like to bring your attention to one of my favorite military aircraft. A former bomber for the Royal Air Force, she is one of the strangest looking but in my humble opinion, one of the most graceful, deadly aircraft ever to grace the sky.

Her name is the Avro Vulcan, and as of October 2007, only one has been restored to flying condition.

Avro Vulcan - XH558
Maiden Restoration Flight
Date: 18 October 2007
Taken by: Karl Drag
Location: Bruntingthorpe, United Kingdom
Link to image on Airliners.net

The Vulcan was part of the V-Bomber, a term used for the Royal Air Force strategic nuclear strike force during the Cold War. The three bombers were made from different aircraft companies, but all had names that started with the letter "V": Handley-Page Victor, Vickers Valiant, and the Avro Vulcan.

If you've never heard of aircraft companies like Handley-Page or Vickers, that is because either they do not exist anymore, or were purchased and absorbed by a larger entity. We are talking about the early 1950's when these aircraft first took to the sky, and you probably can't tell from the look of the planes: The aircraft in the V-Bomber look incredibly...retro-futuristic. There is no other way for me to describe these odd birds.

The Avro Vulcan was (and still is today) powered by variants of the Rolls-Royce Olympus, the same line of engines that became the powerhouse for the Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde. The sound that the Vulcan produces, is unlike anything I have ever heard of on other aircraft. When the engine is on full-throttle, she produces this distinct organic "roar" sound. Below is a sample from XH558's maiden restoration flight...you will hear the roar 13 seconds into the clip:

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She was designed to cruise at an altitude of 55,000 feet, near the speed of sound (around the same as our modern day Boeing 747) with a maximum speed of 0.96 Mach (627 MPH), and to carry a payload of approximately 9.5 metric ton of bombs. By sheer accident, the Vulcan has the potential of stealth (except for her vertical tail plane), because the body of the aircraft has a small radar cross-section.

And the Vulcan is big. Actually, she is HUGE. The currently flying Vulcan XH558 is the variant model B.2, which includes an 111 feet wingspan. However from interviews of former Vulcan pilots, they remarked that despite her large size, she is quite maneuverable, therefore she can roll and behave a bit like a fighter:

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The following clip shows how the aircraft was flown back when she was still in service. The crew had to wear insulation and oxygen mask to work and breathe at high altitude. This is also a good clip to hear the pilots go through the checklist of initializing equipment, comm check, and eventually, starting the engines. Here again, you can hear that same "roar" sound when the plane took off, right after the pilot said "100, 110, 120, 130...Proceed to rotate."

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Finally, we have a clip of her maiden restoration flight on 18 October 2007:

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Thanks to Sonicbomb.com for providing some of the precious footage of the Vulcan.

Flight International did an article about the restoration project and the succesful maiden flight. The link can be found here.

Fly on, XH558...