The Last Flight Of Britain’s Cold War Nuclear Bomber | Last Flight Of The Vulcan Bomber | Timeline

Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free exclusive podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Matt Lewis and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code ‘TIMELINE’ 👉 https://access.historyhit.com/

You can find more from us on:

https://www.facebook.com/timelineWH

@timelineworldhistory

https://www.instagram.com/timelineWH

This channel is part of the History Hit Network. Any queries, please contact owned-enquiries@littledotstudios.com

Foreign a couple of weeks ago massive massive fill this guided let the Earth move yeah piece of cake it’s the Vulcan this is the inside story about one of Britain’s Best Loved airplanes and its final flying days the Avro Vulcan was the plane that protected the nation a cold war icon

Designed to launch a massive nuclear retaliation at the Soviet Union thank you today only one airworthy Vulcan survives but now too expensive to maintain this technological Masterpiece is about to be grounded forever almost 30 years past retirement so we can’t say all the 100 confidence that it’s going to run

Swimmingly we’re in unknown territory towards me today guy Martin has been granted privileged access to help repair the aircraft for its most ambitious Mission ever a 1 000 mile farewell tour of Britain A rare honor Vulcan formation I reckon I could have jumped off the Balkan I just rocking it back that’s how close it was and he’ll become one of the few civilians to ever take control of a military aircraft I think that was a little bit more than a wheelie Vulcan nuclear bombers were scrambled from places like this Robin Hood airport near Doncaster is a former RAF base of the 136 Vulcans built only one is left flying this is where she lives in her original 1950s Cold War hunger or we love a new project we love a new job

We love a new job designation xh558 name Spirit of Great Britain that’s a lot of playing this is the first time guys seen a Vulcan up close just massive it’s the size of the sky 45 tonne as it sits here 93 told when it’s full of fuel 14 fuel

Tanks in that 14 fuel tanks now it’s quite nearly not quite but nearly the speed of sound it’s like 700 miles an hour that’s a lot of playing the Vulcan was a remarkable Leap Forward the concept was dreamed up in 1947 by Roy Chadwick whose other celebrated bomber the Lancaster entered service

Just five years earlier going from a Lancaster bomber to this in the space of five years he’s like nothing he’s like noises there’s nothing like you could say you might say that he’s a Quantum Leap I wouldn’t use that word I haven’t thought the words yet that I’d use but this is just

One of those moments who’s that I’ve come up with that it’s one of those moments look at it hey handled like a fighter but then could drop massive nuclear bombs there are four busy months of air displays to go before 558’s final flight and Guy starts work by reporting to his

New boss we’ve heard a lot about Taff is welshinning I should have known that Kevin tough stone is 558’s chief engineer how are you doing all right pleased to meet you this is the man responsible for keeping the Vulcan flying way past her sell by

Date so if a wing dropped off this it’s your fault yes in the court of law I could be culpable for it all right I can go to prison it’s only dead did he go down for five years and so before guys let anywhere near five five eight so we

Are actually on a live active Airfield tap insists on some essential training health and safety production I am a first aider so there’s any problems I can deal with all that a lot and obviously we don’t get drinking drunk no I’m not very good at that point but that

Doesn’t matter if it means to get the chance to work on a Vulcan then I’m all for it tough is a highly experienced former RAF engineer he worked on Vulcans for 30 years and flew with the Red Arrows as a back seat technician they are live ejection seats

Is his pride and joy this is temperamental high maintenance but they’re gonna do liver it’s a proper engineering aircraft you there’s no little black boxes to tell you what’s wrong that you get to know and feel the aircraft it’s our inductions with the induction over work can begin The first job is a big one testing 558 engines tough and list guys help for the first crucial stage of the operation one handle six doors I’ll get cracking then come on it that’s it that’s excuse me six ton of door yep it’s filled with ballast bomb blasts is that right yeah

That’ll do your guy this servicing procedure is performed every 20 flying hours and has been carried out since the Vulcan entered service 59 years ago today is the final time it will ever be done while she’s flying the companies that sign off 558’s annual safety checks have run out of the

Necessary 1950s expertise so at the end of the year the permit to fly will not be renewed I’m not particularly looking forward to it you always want to be the best and you want to keep it going right to the end and then you’re thinking

But I don’t want it to be the end you just want to keep going keep it going for as long as physically possible it feels like falling in a chasm it’s built to fly and yet they’re getting rid of the best British bomber ever built something wrong somewhere there Start the jet engines we’re clear behind Sam Asters on the mission is on okay it was on four buttons in one started each engine is checked at full power sucking in 100 kilograms of air a second creates the vulcan’s legendary howl Zero fuel take some beating that boys take some beating thanks everyone all complete everything went well all right the ground shaking but as well as the garage it’s like me you needed to move it inside me oh one of them I’ve never felt anything in my eye

But yes test passed we’re one step nearer to a final flight it’s gonna be emotional this breathtaking aircraft was designed and built in tiling Great Britain it was the first British machine of the atomic age and yet it started as a humble doodle on a newspaper

When World War II ended the Cold War began the face of an increasingly belligerent Soviet Union Labor prime minister Clement Utley commissioned an atomic bomb program to act as Britain’s nuclear deterrent this left his ministry of Supply with the problem of how to deliver that deterrent they tended for an aircraft capable of

Carrying a five-ton nuclear payload to Moscow in less than three hours flying twice as high as anything that had gone before in order to avoid Russian defenses AV row of Manchester Rose to the challenge technical director Roy Chadwick realized conventional straight Wings wouldn’t be up to the job instead he suggested a

Radical triangular delta wing obviously it’s great for Lift because we’ve got a massive amount of wing area it makes the whole fuels large very stiff because it’s all joined together in one lump and we’ve got loads of area for storing petrol Off fuel we’ll call it fuel Chadwick’s original Doodles became

Designs for a plane built around a bomb the five-man crew were almost an afterthought you need to have a look at him is there any lag will the camera be I’ll see that she’s cozy she’s cozy tonight right yeah what we’ve got here is um that’s pilot from One Pilots co-pilots

This is me on the stairs and there is no space you could not swing cats around here here we have AEO air Electronics officer he looks after all the planes electrical coins and there is a lot of electrics on this um now plotter he looks after where the

Plane’s going and here we have nav radar you looked after dropping the bombs see this in the corner see that manual Bomb Dropper eh that is a powerful button you’re thinking rights one two three four five oh and that’s your um your suit warmer that took 90 minutes to

Warm it recirculates the air in the engine bay to warm that up 90 minutes hug me you’ve broken me oh she is busy I’ll press the button discover the past with exclusive military history documentaries ad-free podcast presented by world-renowned historians all on History hits watch

Them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device download the app now to watch everything from the gripping story of the Band of Brothers to Operation Barbarossa and D-Day immerse yourself in the dramatic stories of this remarkable era by signing up via the link in the description

In the early 1980s the Vulcan Fleet had reached the end of its serviceable life and was sliced up for scrap But 558 was given a stay of execution when she was bought by a private Enthusiast in the House of Commons this afternoon Mr Jonathan Aiken will announce the sale of the Falcon xh-558 took this to David Walton do you know how much you paid got the original mag

And the original advert anyway 92 he paid 25 000 pounds now you know you do think that initially a 25 000 pound get a Vulcan bomb over 25 000 plates but then you’ve got to think how are you going to explain that to the missus 558 was now a museum piece

But five years later in 1997 a Vulcan Super Fan had other ideas I said to myself I’m damned as this aircraft will never fly again sends a shiver down my spine even now Robert pleming Keen Air Cadet nuclear physicist taught by Stephen Hawking and Pioneer of computer

Networking at the start of the World Wide Web gave up his executive salary to try and restore 558 to flight it was an immense personal risk some of my old friends of the time thought I was mad which to be honest was was one possible explanation

I regard this as the Everest of aircraft Restorations it must be and I have to admit at times I was wondering whether or not I was going to be Mallory or Hillary I do think there’s an engineer’s gut feel that I certainly feel from the very earliest days I was

Convinced that we could return the aircraft to fly based on Instinct rather than actual firm knowledge we thought we’d need about one and a half million to restore the aircraft that proved to be a huge underestimate the project was on the brink of financial ruin and as a last resort

Pleming spent three solid months preparing a submission to the Heritage Lottery fund this is it this is two volumes worth a hundred and ten thousand words of what is needed to make a successful Lottery fund Grant application a pretty reasonable novel they were awarded 2.7 million pounds public donations more than doubled that

Figure and in 2007 after 100 000 man hours the world’s most complex restoration was rolled out of a hunger 558 was towed past her adoring public said to the runway made the familiar hole Reached 116 miles per hour and flew for the first time in 14 years the plane has been a star of air shows ever since there has been a cost I guess I could have earned very much more money than I’ve earned I’m not sure whether or not the stress

Has caused medical problems or whatever but there have been a few Milestone medical issues along the way undoubtedly worth it no question we’ve given so much pleasure to so many people it is a day a job to run how much does it cost I don’t want to you know you

Don’t really ask but I thought I should ask and I figure that we have had to raise year on year is about two and a quarter million pounds two and a quarter million well we can take the aircraft to the people we’re seeing by somewhere between two and three million people a year

And in my head that’s a pound of smile the Vulcan is funded largely by public money and displays for around 40 hours a year the maintenance alone to keep the plane safe runs up an annual bill of one million pounds none of the servicing jobs on the Vulcan are straightforward

Checking for airframe fatigue requires the plane to be jacked up off the ground but lowering it back down again is one of the riskiest procedures the team carry out guy will have to pay attention to everything crew chief tough tells him right then he sounds a bit dramatic that we say if

You let one Jack down too fast you write the whole Plane off but that is the case once the wing supports have been removed the aircraft is left sitting on hydraulic jacks 45 tons of Priceless airplane is balanced on just four small jacking points if you come down incorrectly and it

Slips off then it could completely ruin the aircraft or you could twist the airframe oh heck there are no spare airframes so a Twist here would leave the aircraft permanently grounded guy will work alongside former RAF technician Ray Watts we keep our eye on Mark yes our two come down together yes

And the guys come down together and we just do it and basically if any doubt you’re not happy you shout stop yeah and all four of us will stop yeah I cut my teeth on these when I was 18 to 22. it’s a bond that stays with you

It’s going to be a sad day when the last flight goes you’ll see a lot of people upset and I don’t really want to talk about that okay all together down one slowly releases the valve and painstaking procedure begins I think that does pay for a bit

It’s fine so we just keep our eye on that one as well yeah Taff sat in the cockpit watching a plumb bob so Taff knows if it’s back end too low or front end too low or cross-cornered you know that’s when it’s going to stress the airframe you see so

Everyone lets the jacks down evenly okay friends only down one front only down one Okay stop you think it creaking yeah the African Creek you know nobody panic pan and tough guides the fractional correction that’s necessary front right only down one the plumb bob returns to Center stop these boys have done this before we’re in good hands 35 minutes after starting the process

The Vulcan has descended 18 inches and is safely back on Solid Ground why off that’s it we’re done to a falcon off deck lights but oh my I’m impressed that they trusted me with the with the knob on the jack but it was all right he was all right we got it

Done thank you cheers cheers The vulcan’s radical design relied on a number of complex electrical systems to help it fly although commonplace today when the first prototype was built in the 1950s they were completely untested we’ve got no fancy computer programs backline to tell us if it’s going to fly or if it’s

Going to do this or do that we need to build one and then get a pilot Daft enough to fly That man was the Debonair Wing Commander rolly Folk Rowley of course was always dressed immaculately in his gray pinstripe suit and he said an aircraft should be as clean as a car it shouldn’t be necessary to put on protective clothing in August 1952 folks stepped forward to save a full-size Vulcan would fly

It had taken five years to reach this point Avro designer Stuart Davis had developed the Delta concept and witnessed the maiden voyage with his daughter I was 12 years old and down we go to stand with the other bystanders great anticipation a bit because he took it on one or two

Little test runs down the runway before he actually did nothing and then this beautiful bird took off into the sky and we all thought wow stop the whole of Cheshire the traffic everything ground to a standstill because he’d never seen anything like this at all God was on there about his face

It came over the new assembly theater Woodward and he rolled him like a fighter I couldn’t believe it it’s such a massive aircraft as we rolled and he smashed all the glass in the roof of the door assembly and it was lined up for a long time until the roof was redone I’ve

Never forgotten that all the workforce thought it was terrific he did put the aircraft through a lot of Maneuvers they weren’t always Maneuvers that he had been asked to put it through and I can remember my father saying he shouldn’t have done that but it just shows how good the aircraft was

Rolly of course was a superb pilot but being a superb pilot doesn’t really ensure that the aircraft is ideal it’s absolutely vital that the aircraft can be handled by the worst pilot in the Squadron if you like and not only the best so before the plane was handed over

To the RAF Brave Pilots like Tony Blackman had to test it to the Limit and the vulcaner before is particularly exciting because he would lose control at the maximum speed it would aircraft would just try to try and die for hope Avro spent four years refining the design using as much cutting-edge

Technology as possible from analyzing shock waves in Wind tunnels to early computers calculations which would have taken a month can now be condensed into a matter of minutes that’s what’s amazing about the Balkan in spite of this very unfortunate handling we managed to make it into a very effective bomber the

Vulcan entered service in 1956 but its smooth shape influenced the design of stealth bombers some 30 years later and its roles Royce Olympus engines became the heart of Concord my father was extremely proud of it and every time I’ve seen it Fly since uh tears come to my eyes I think of my

Father We are visual guy Martin is about to see one of the final displays of the last airworthy Vulcan the legendary nuclear bomber He makes that noise between 85 and 97 throttle they didn’t design it to do that it just happened that it’s the air rushing through the engines down the tunnels you know it’s like a resonance it’s like blowing over the top of the milk I don’t know if you can hear that

It just opened her up there You can feel the howl off the only thing better than experience in a Vulcan display from the ground is to watch it from the sky The blades aerobatic team have flown alongside 558 on numerous occasions and are marking this their final display together by inviting a Spitfire to join the formation Guide all right mate will be flown by Miles Garland one of the Red Arrows youngest ever Squadron leaders I’ll be shy my mother wasn’t that’s what you’ve done what’s the craziest thing I’ve done yeah Just seconds after takeoff guys within a wingspan of the Vulcan it’s a ball state that but I don’t think there’s anyone that’s got any nearer to a flying Vulcan than me and Miles I reckon I could have jumped off the ball complacably you know I just rocket that’s how close it was

It was going that slow it looked like we’re gonna fall out of the sky but he wasn’t 180 miles an hour You can see the size of it in relation to the Spitfire fire is 20 years older than the Vulcan yet is still nowhere near retirement which begs an obvious question there’s a load of spitfly slime why can’t the Vulcan carry on flying he’s not as simple as that makes

Because the Spitfire it’s cables rods linkages you could build it in your shed but the Vulcan could not be further from that it has 14 miles of cabling more than a hundred thousand parts and with no manual overrides if there’s a system failure it can’t be glided to the ground

With the engineering firms who guarantee her safety now running out of the old-fashioned skills needed to support her 558 has to be retired away now guys thank you very much and probably the last person that’s gonna get as near as that to apply Hulk and I’m just saying to say You’ve done that before well that’s never gonna happen again is it I’ve just all went into motion I just I just I’ve just been sat on the whole time I’m just engaging at the thing just gazing at you I’m still shaking my head you gotta you

Give me a minute give me a minute she may be a crowd-pleasing display aircraft these days but the Vulcan was designed to be a killing machine at the height of the Cold War it was a linchpin of bomber commands qra qra stood for quick reaction alert a special group poised to rapidly deliver

A massive nuclear retaliation and the event of a Soviet attack every Vulcan Squadron had to have a plane loaded with a nuclear weapon ready to go at a moment’s notice 24 hours a day whenever that call out occurred it certainly sent the heart racing we tended to sleep in our flying suits

The essence of the thing was to be able to move quickly and to get your aircraft quickly we knew if we’re ever scrambled it only meant one thing and that was missiles incoming to the UK we also knew the time that we probably got East to Norway there won’t be much

Left to the UK so it was a case of we’re going to do to them on what they have just done to us one of the things you had to come to terms with is the fact that it may well be that you will result in the death of hundreds of thousands of

People on the ground not a nice thought and it’s somewhere I wouldn’t like to have gone but if I had to have done it I would have done it back at 558’s Hangar the maintenance work continues guys been entrusted with a turbine inspection deep inside the air intakes

I thought I was gonna have to get there I was talking duck I’ll forget why someone get naked to get him but actually it’s all right there is plenty of room you don’t know what’s going to crack next or what’s going to drop the Beats

Neck so you just gotta have a Keen Eye any Nicks in the blades that’s what we’re checking for can you see what I’m looking at the torch if there’s been any rivets go through or Birds go through or small children go through it would Mark the blades look at that noise

Just the blades are loose in The Roots when the thing gets to temperature in its speed at the centrifugal force holding tight that’s how it should be if they’re not rallying we’ve got a problem Thursday morning set an air intake and Vulcan hey the best mechanics job the best mechanics job hey

Everybody I don’t want to scratching anything in order as far as I can see we’ll get cracking down here one of the tasks no task is complete until crew chief tough records it on the civil aviation Authority’s certificate of work if you’d like to sign for a physical task on this actress

Thank you very much on the official paperwork so I know who to blame it’s all announced don’t worry 558 is fit to fly for now but there’s one safety aspect that has beleaguered the Vulcan through its entire life whilst the pilot and co-pilot up front had ejector seats the design couldn’t

Accommodate them for the crew in the back but what they did do for us is the the seats would swivel and then we have what’s known as aceta sister cushion all right I get into that position there I pull this lever on the side which inflates that cushion there like a

Whoopee cushion and you cannot fight it if it goes off it ejects you towards the entrance hole because there is a disadvantage that if you’ve got the undercarriage down then just aft of the the escape hatch is the nose wheel um that’s from wheels are staring at me

It’s not going to do your dentures too much good I’ve got to somehow get down there and jump that way while avoiding that while trying to pull my parachute you are the way you had to go down then as you went down with your legs spread apart so your feet slide down the

Outside of the hatch onto the hydraulic jacks and then you reach over and catch the starboard Jack stabbing why it’s not a stab it and you swing yourself out the side of the door and hang on I’ve got my shield car man hopefully to go down the side of the

Nose build I’ve got and now pull me parachute and try and miss that even if the nose wheel wasn’t down an emergency exit was perilously dangerous not terribly satisfactory and not a lot of people have actually got out 15 Vulcan crashes all in all um and in 10 of those crashes

All of the boys coming out that way died 10 of the crashes odds aren’t very good I can see why one real crew member who had to contemplate those odds was Peter West I heard this bang well it was a bird strike the two starboard engines burst into

Flame and for the first and only time in my RAF career of nearly 35 years I pressed the key and sent a made a message the plane was five five eight the Vulcan guy is working on people have said to me oh God 508 nearly killed you can’t on the contrary 5A V8

Kept us alive that aircraft with a big hole in the starboard Wing stayed airborne there are two months left before Vulcan 558’s 1000 Mile farewell tour of Britain with the team confident the airframe is holding up well but she’s 55 years old and with no other

Vulcan having flown for so long the team never know when a problem might arise and on the 5th of September one did the controls that day was Virgin Atlantic airline pilot Bill perrins we performed a couple of air displays we were preparing to land at Prestwick airport up in Scotland and we selected

The undercarriage down and it didn’t fully come down a plane spotted footage captured the faulty nose wheel safe London looked impossible and with fuel running out the airport initiated its emergency protocols Phil Davis was in the back of the Vulcan working as the air Electronics officer we believe that Samara had gotten the

System so the nose wheel came down to about 70 degrees we call if it was any British military aircraft around the RAF scrambled a Spitfire Over to us came up flew alongside and confirmed that the nose wheel was in fact not fully down we’ve just kind of settled to go out to

Sea to blow the gear down and suddenly I think the old girl decided that she didn’t want us to do that and with a big clunk the nose wheel went down a lot The nose wheel was down but nobody could be sure it would take the strain of the London parents kept the nose in the air until the last possible second to try and make touchdown as gentle as possible she made it and for the pilot at least it’s definitely time to retire 558

Personally I think it’s exactly the right time to knock it on the head and park it up certainly when I reach the same sort of comparable age I don’t want somebody to make me do lots of things I don’t want to do I just intend to sit in

An armchair become grumpy and drink a few beers thanks very much to everybody for your patience There are only five Pilots sufficiently qualified to fly a Vulcan today and Aviation regulations prohibit carrying any passengers so there’s only one way guy can experience a working Vulcan this is xm655 although not in flying Condition it’s preserved well enough to be able to Taxi fast guy will be allowed to experience this

From the cockpit sitting alongside Wing Commander Mike pollitt right morning all Welcome to our new student pilot guy Martin he asked me if I asked me normally there’s four and a half bumps of Solid Ground school and then four or five trips before a co-pilot is let off on

His first ever real go with his own crew so this is going to be considerably compressed for your training today happy yeah do you want to take off do I yeah she does yeah yeah I’d lose every license as possible you know and I’d be in court and the civil aviation Authority would

Take me to the cleaners worth it well it would be with you on board basically you know you know I would I would look the intention is to lose speed just before takeoff by using the wing as a giant air brake which means Guy having to follow a very precise set of instructions

You’re going to sit in the right hand seat yes which is the co-pilot seat okay we will show you a few of the switches that need to be made on the right hand side and I’m specifically going to point out the airspeed indicator yeah and so

That’s going to hit 75 or 18 knots right okay at that point we’d close the throttles pop the air brake so raise the nose and that presents the wing to the Airstream to slow it down yeah that slows it down And you started a jet engine before this is going to be an honor to teach you how to start an engine Very clear start four careful lighting up now there she goes that’s got it open her up yep okay yeah you’re doing it by field fantastic well done you’re starting your first jet engine they’re cleared to remove the chops and everybody clear please hand on the stick

That’s my boy this is the ASI yeah only briefly taxiing at full power is permitted but it will take all of guys concentration to help win Commander Mike pollitt keep the Vulcan on the ground is everybody happy stops up at the back no problems are we being cleared to go okay

The engines are brought up to power [Applause] Seconds go yeah and 90 miles per hour they pull back on the stick hard to try and slow down but no souls just before takeoff they slam the nose down The air brakes are deployed stamp on the wheel brakes and bring the 70-ton bomber to hold not a lot of room forever gladly read the speed of fast enough that’s some acceleration there you have control thank you Britain’s newest co-pilot is entrusted with taxi in this Priceless aircraft back to base

You’ve got the Rudders and the lows will stealing and the bottles it’s a one bright storm yep breaks off I almost checked to the side that gives you a feeling of the speed as well as checking it your little tick is clearer than the obstacles more like 30 now

Almost as good as driving a scanner isn’t it okay beautiful watch this camera we’ve got somewhere on the center line so keep the little bit to the right guy I just bring it around gradually what I say to the right now well done very good for 70 10 vehicle

It’s a natural at it okay stop yeah okay brake supply fantastic engine enticing off can you close one of them four please guys that’s the artist that’s those shut now yep those two and three please go fantastic well done I’m asleep thank you very much indeed everybody

So what’s the captain’s opinion on the newest recruit to a Vulcan Squadron is good it was really good I’d say you know we do that three or four times more I’d let him do the next one himself really that very very good Vulcan Pilots were always rigorously trained

But it looked like they or their aircraft were never going to see Combat Action by 1982 the vulcan’s time was nearly up then just three months before retirement the tired old bomber was finally called into action Argentina had invaded the Falkland Islands their tanks were on the streets

And their aircraft had captured the key strategic location of Port Stanley Airfield Britain wanted to take out the runway so it couldn’t be used by Argentina’s fast Jets but the challenge was using conventional bombs to hit a Target just 40 meters wide there was 8 000 miles from home

Even launching the attack from the halfway point at a base on Ascension Island still meant this would be the longest bombing raid in British military history where away from any Coastline so we can’t use our radar so we went for a long period where we really didn’t know

Where we were apart from we knew of course we were heading south the Vulcan would need more than 30 000 gallons of fuel to complete the mission but its tanks could only carry 9000 gallons the only way to get fuel that far from home was with a relay of 11 Airborne

Tankers and a bafflingly complicated in-flight refueling plan I’d never seen anything like it before in my life I didn’t really understand it couldn’t follow it but luckily I had dick Russell on my right shoulder and I turned to him and said do you understand that dick and he said yes so thank

Goodness for that refueling is very very tricky the object is with small throttle movements who gradually edge up put your probe in the basket of the hose easier said than done the Pilot’s explanation for in-flight refueling was it’s like trying to put a piece of wet spaghetti up a cat’s backside sweat

Not half sometimes sometimes you’ll run into turbulence which will make it even more difficult it is stressful I know there’s so much that could go wrong I mean if you speared that into the back of the plane in front he’s probably going to come down that’s going to break off

That’s going to go in your engine you’re probably going to come down yeah it could get messy but we then we like a bit of risk and they didn’t just have to refuel once they had to refuel seven times but after the final Top-Up the crew realized they’d been left short

They were now beyond the range of any other tanker if they continued the mission they’d been likely to make it home Martin thought about it I can hear him now he said I’m come all this way to go back I was absolutely determined that we just had to go on with this attack

Into the target at 400 miles per hour the bombing computer was switched on a 1940s Clockwork calculator that worked out the bombs should be released from two miles away it is genuinely mechanical the forward throw should carry the bombs to Target mind-blowing the mission’s success now

Fell to Bob Wright it’s a matter of pressing the button so the bombs start falling off the aircraft finally the counter gets to 21. I said bomb’s gone Avalos of 20 odds thousand pound bombs only one hit the runway but that was enough to put the runway out of

Commission for fast years so the job was done foreign it’s time for the last flying vulcan’s farewell tour of Britain after months of planning the whole event may have to be canceled due to thick fog no you can’t that’s a problem hoping for the best team decide to prepare their beloved

Aircraft for flight anyway it’s four months since guy first joined the ground crew to help them work on this iconic machine what will get me is what it means to these boys and when it starts to hit them it’s gonna be a mouse yeah it’s like a friend sick

All the memories of the thing whilst it’s gonna mean to you when he packs up by there’s a bit of all of us on that and that’s the thing we’ll be upset when it dies Tad emotional yeah say that much yeah only crew chief tough seems to be keeping a cool head no

Just good at hiding it there are three hours of pre-flight servicing to carry out the pneumatic systems are replenished anyone if I’ve done this before the tire pressures are checked 558 is filled up with fuel sorry sorry it takes 40 minutes 24 000 pounds an hour before the schedule takeoff the

Fog begins to clear 558 can be handed over to her Pilots what’s blaming to you well it’s about the 63rd time I’ve flown in the last five years so it’s got a place in my heart and it’s just you know I know you like machinery and the technology in it

The more you learn about it just the more fantastic the design was so yes we’ll miss it Captain Bill perrins runs guy through the mission we’re gonna go wash across to just west of Harrogate yeah and then up toward Newcastle airport yeah and then all the way up the

Northeast Coast just to the east of Edinburgh yeah and going through the Lake District which is going to look lovely today shouldn’t be too bumpy how long were you going to go over here 500 501 feet the airplane was born at Woodford yes Nottingham Derby and then back here and

Land and that’s that last time ever very sad so we need to get in the airplane and go flying you go for your life Engines everybody happy there he is it’s happening I’ll be happy when she takes off because then I know we’ve all done no job properly 558 is about to start her most ambitious Tour Ever where she’ll cover a total of more than 1 000 miles all right hand off I got a bit of a shiver on man I got a bit of a shiver on man it brings a funny emotion actually there’ll be people around the country now who will be seeing this for the last time so it’s a it’s a funny old moment rear crew member Phil Davis makes sure

The Epic tour is flown with military precision five seconds later the first Landmark is the Cold War radar station and men with hell fans with camera phones are at every turn there’s a lot of people here actually yeah flying above the Yorkshire tables at 250 miles per hour the Vulcan soon reaches

The river tine and is cleared to fly over the center of Newcastle here one hour after takeoff they reached the Firth of fourth and edinburgh’s famous Hill King Arthur’s seat it’s quite spectacular looking City the question is how those are going to be before I have to eat that sandwich don’t you normally

Have pies With more than 50 locations to visit the last flying Vulcan was getting the send-off she deserved with something special there’s nothing like it left there’s not going to be a dry eye in the house I could guarantee that and certainly not in my head to see 558 finished flying it’s going to be

A sad loss to me I’ll always remember it with huge affection it was to me the best aircraft in the world I loved it It’s flying beautifully this is what they said it’s going to be mourned The tour was a magnificent success with 300 000 Spectators turning out General Concord final flight didn’t get this at all I was there the Lake District saw huge crowds in the shores of Windermere flew past Manchester in its police helicopter and onto Woodford near Stockport once home to the factory where

All the Vulcans were designed built and first flew she went on to complete a tour of the South as well taking in the Seven Bridge the White Cliffs of Dover and the Thames Estuary before finally returning to Doncaster where xh-558 the spirit of Great Britain will live on the ground forevermore

I hope you’ve enjoyed it I hope you learned something I’ve learned a lot to design Aubry built over here and then eventually it was restored over here what an achievement s I was is he nervous when I was lollipopping it back it’s a lot of playing coming towards you that hey there’s only going to be one winner good marshalling there It’s been a massive experience met a lot of interesting people a lot of people with a lot of passion about this playing that’s maybe great I don’t know how you filled your boots because that’s it that’s it she’s never going again