Warbird Information Exchange

May 9th saw Avro Vulcan B2 XH558, now operated as civilian G-VLCN, land back at its present base of Bruntingthorpe in the East Midlands of England. This was at the conclusion of a series of test flights. Most recently it had flown up to RAF Coningsby where it spent a few days. According to the owners (Vulcan To The Sky Trust) the paperwork can now be submitted to the CAA for a Permit To Fly which is another step towards it joining the display circuit.
This is a magnificent achievement by all concerned. I've not seen any pics on WIX of this latest flight so thought you might like to see some of this huge bird in action.

Tim

I wish there was more notice for when these flights will be taking place. I live only about 45 minutes away, and would love to go see it, but thusfar I've missed all of the flights.

Hi All,

SWEET photo's ! It's great to see a Vulcan airborne and airworthy. Kudo's to all who made it happen and thanks for sharing the photo's.

Paul

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Dammit Jim, I'm an Airplane Inspector/Mechanic not a Doctor !

Randy,
If you check the Military Aircrew forum on PPrune (you may have to register if you arn't already) you'll get pretty good advance info as a few of the Vulcan Eng team post there, the timings for it's arrival and departure to/from RAF Coningsby last week were posted up.

http://www.pprune.org/forums/index.php

"Huge bird" is an understatement...that thing is gigantic...and beautiful! Thanks for sharing the photos!
Mike

Thanks for posting the pictures!

Man, that is one sweet looking aircraft. It looks much better in the air than tied to the ground like I've seen them.
Tim

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www.tailhookstudio.com

Probably worth posting this link to a bit of Youtube footage taken last week of the Vulcan taking off from Coningsby on this latest test flight........turn the speakers up for the Olympus howl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-IPO7vyT7o

To give you an idea of how big a bird it is.


Randy,if I get to know when it is flying again ;I could send you a text, if you want to pm me your mob no.
It worked for Tim !

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Those that can do,those that can't be bothered,TALK about it.
Volunteer with Classic Flight and a member of Beech Restorations team.
http://beechrestorations.wordpress.com/about-us/
http://www.classicflight.com.

Yep - I can thoroughly recommend Alan's early warning ....I'd have been nowhere near if he'd not helped.
Tim

Those are some interesting shots, with the nose high tail low landing. If it had a tailwheel on it, it could be vintage. I don't see any landing flaps beklow the wing, does it have them?

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

No it doesn't.

There's a good rear view of a typical Vulcan nose high roller display landing using the giant wing area for aerodynamic braking, at the end of this clip.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e02U0Uh3MUY

Hi Bill,

I'm pleased you found my photos of interest.

I've never been a Vulcan jockey but quoting from Andrew Brookes' book about the Vulcan (he interviewed crew members), his volume mentions:

The B2 aircraft has 8 movable elevons on the rear edge of the wing four on each side which act as elevators or ailerons depending on the manoeuvre.

In flight if the nose was lowered suddenly at the top of a climb all 8 elevons went down and acted as a huge flap across the whole trailing edge generating extra lift.......

So far as landings go his book explains:

"At the top of descent out would come the airbrakes and and down would go the Vulcan at around 4000ft/min...."

"The lift / drag characteristics of the delta wing were such that a certain amount of 'throttle-pumping' was inevitable on approach. Mid-drag airbrake was selected at the top of the glide slope and the rate of descent was controlled by power adjustments and airspeed by elevators. The delta wing wing could be rotated to outstanding angles of attack before it stalled and the approach was at a fairly steep nose-up angle, but the rate of sink could become rather high unless checked by power."

"Accurate speed keeping was crucial to good landing. If speed over the threshold was too high, the angle of attack when the Vulcan rounded out into the landing attitude became such that sufficient lift was generated to cause the bomber to rise. The obvious reaction to this was to push the stick forward, thereby moving the elevons down such that they acted as one large flap which generated extra lift causing the aircraft to rise further. ......

To ease the load on brakes aerodynamic braking was used ......the big bird reared up on its hind legs....

Hope this gives some insight - but the author deserves the credit for this explanation!

As an aside - sorry to hear about your Spitfire Bill - I well remember it when in the UK at Elstree and elsewhere. Metal can be fixed but humans are more precious so glad you and the other pilot are OK! Good to hear from you.

Regards
Tim

This view gives you a bit of an idea of the flaperons on the Vulcan wing.

Twice I had the chance to take a full rear view picture and I forgot!
Bill, I echo Tim's thoughts,look after yourselfand keep the,Supermarine, faith.

_________________
Those that can do,those that can't be bothered,TALK about it.
Volunteer with Classic Flight and a member of Beech Restorations team.
http://beechrestorations.wordpress.com/about-us/
http://www.classicflight.com.

Look at that. A huge flying wing with a huge internal bomb bay and four engines buried in the wing root. Called the Avro Vulcan B2
Northrop eaven stole part of it's name!!!!!

Rgds Cking

Actually, one could argue the other way 'round. The XB-35 was under design in the late 1930s and under contract in 1942. It was this research that Jack Northrop and NACA was doing that interested the designer of the Vulcan, Roy Chadwick. From the amassed data, he felt the Delta design would give the most lift for the lowest drag, allowing the use of smaller (and thus less fuel thirsty) turbojets while carrying sufficient fuel to meet any range requirements.

Also, the designation is Avro "Vulcan" B.Mk2, or B.2 not "B2" as is popularly used. The designation reads-out as Avro "Vulcan", Bomber, Second Variant, not Avro, Bomber Design 2, "Vulcan", as it would be known in US parlance. The variants of the Vulcan were -
B.1 - Basic Vulcan Bomber
B.1A - B.1 with ECM suite installed
B.2 - Second version with the mutli-sweep, multi chorde wing. Fitted with Terrain Following Radar, new ECM suite, upgraded automatic flight system, and new APUs and Ram Air Turbine.
B.2A - B.2 with Olympus 301 engines & fitted for Blue Steel
B.2(MRR) - B.2 without a Terrain Following Radar & outfitted for Maratime Reconnaisance and LORAN navigation suite as interim measure between the Shackelton and Nimrod.
K.2 - B.2 fitted out for Air Refuelling with a Inflight Refuelling Limited Hose-Drum unit and barrel-type bomb bay fuel tanks.