RB5-107

For those interested in this grand old lady I took this (not great) video of her taking off and banking at RAF Leuchars today. Will post up the pics at some point.

YouTube - Avro Vulcan XH558 RAF Leuchars Airshow 12th September 2009

Would bring a tear to a glass eye

astraboy

That looked suspisciously like a wingover to me
astraboy.

Midlife......

iTrader: (2)

Blimey

Not a lot of G pulled though

Shaun

Steve vRS

It is a work of art isn't it.

Steve

FlightMan

Stunning.

jods

WOW - Wish I'd been there. Take it these shows are advertised on T'interweb?

Petem95

That thing's got some serious power hasn't it! Takes off from stationary in a surprisingly short space, then what must be in the region of a 70 tonne aircraft goes into an almost vertical climb!!!

I'm not up on military aircraft to know how the thrust/weight ratio (or whatever is most relavant) compares to modern jet bombers like say a B1, but I have a feeling this thing is superior?! That thing has impressed a lot of people this year!

Petem95

YouTube - Luchtmachtdagen 09 - Avro Vulcan Bomber XH-558 Airdisplay

I didn't know this had been doing displays outside the UK?! At at airshow in Holland here, and seems to be impressing!

jods

2009 Airshow Calendar

Cool

Midlife......

iTrader: (2)

Roly Falk (the pilot) rolled a vulcan at an airshow when I was a kid........ I wonder if it's on you tube somewhere ?

Shaun

James Neill

iTrader: (1)

Vulcan to the Sky Trust - Avro Vulcan Bomber XH558 - Vulcan To The Sky Trust

wrx-ian

Can wait till next sunday as seeing it at a private airshow

DaveMiddleton

Was also at Leuchars yesterday for the first time in about 8 years. Superb day out with some wonderful displays in a cloudless sky, and yes; I agree that the Vulcan stood out above all the rest.
It brought me out in goosebumps to watch it and I was over to their stand very quickly to make a donation as a mark of my respect for the entire project.
Can't wait to see it again in the air!

Klaatu

Yup. That's what I remember about (The sound of the engines at full chat albeit ALOT quieter) the Vulcan Leslie flew at Biggin Hill in the 70's.

RB5-107

Well what goes up must come down as they say. I'll post a link up to the rest of the pics but thought these deserved an appearance on the thread

The Dogs B******s

Its a big f*cker,nice pics

davyboy

It flew over Northampton today.....not sure where is was going to or from.

Simon C

Sadly I'll be away next weekend when its over me but got the concelation prize today, the Reds in << 200 feet above my flat assuming they'd been at Duxford for the Normandy service.

sprigeteer

iTrader: (9)

Great pics and vids - cheers. BAC Lightning next please!

Midlife......

iTrader: (2)

RB5 107..... nice pics

I've built a few airfix models and seen the big iron triangle as a kid a few times taking off but don't remember those "flap" things above the wings !

I thought these things died with the F107 ... am I missing something Les ??

Shaun

andys

they are the air brakes

Leslie

It was easy to do as long as you raised the nose high enough in the first part of the roll.

We were expressly forbidden to do that though and if you ever did at a display, that would be the last display you ever did. That did happen to a couple of blokes!

Les

astraboy

With that in mind les, what would a normal aerobatic display consist of? I remember seeing a display at a RIAT some years ago, but the only thing I can remember was the wingover. And the tremendous noise of course
Astraboy

Klaatu

In the vid, you can see the engines white hot, and I recall that too. Hooligan, Leslie, hooligan man.

Leslie

We all had our own approved sequence for a display.

I used to take off and turn left 45 degrees while lifting off followed by a right handed full wingover and a banked flypast along the runway in the opposite direction with a bit of right rudder so that people could see the plan profile of the aircraft. At the end of that run I would turn sharp right and then do a full left wingover descending to fly along the runway again. I would start a steep low level turn to the left through 270 degrees and when facing the crowd line reverse the turn at max rate of roll and do a 360 degree turn to the right opening the bomb doors and then closing them again with a left turn into the circuit for a roller landing from low level. I would touch down and use just enough power to maintain 135 knots until reaching crowd centre when I would apply full power and do a true vertical climb off the runway to about 3000 feet. I would then descend in a lefthand spiral with the throttles closed so that everyone thought the engines had stopped!. From that I would do a short field landing with the enormous tail brake chute-it was possible to stop in less than 1300 feet without hammering the brakes too much. Takes a long time to describe it but the display took exactly 9 minutes.

The advantage in those days was that we were not so restricted as Martin Withers is with 558 is now. The powers that be would turn a blind eye if you went fully inverted at the top of the wingovers, but never, never roll it. End of display career if you did!!!!

I bet it must be very frustrating for Martin now with the CAA restrictions and the G and power limits he has to observe now. 558 would still do a display just as described, or even better since the aircraft is so much lighter than the standard Vulcan now since it had so much operational kit and the wiring removed. About 7 tons lighter I think!

Les

rob878

I would suggest given the timings, it was going from Leuchars . Mildly boring point, the undercarriage requires NDT after every landing due to the fact, until they are overhauled after this airshow season, no one knows the currently lifing on them. NDT kindly c/o by AMF, breaking jets since god knows when.

Glad you enjoyed your day, RB5-107 looks like your pics were taken opposite where I was BBQing at the De-Tuner. FAR FAR away from the public.

Leslie

Did not know about the required NDT, its pretty strong anyway!

Les

andys

are you sure it after every flight? The NDT on the legs where done during the pre session work up once the money was found and are due to be replaced over this winter.

rob878

All I can say (and it's nothing to do with trying to be awkward, it's just all the info I have) is that whilst at Leuchars the MLG was NDT,d on arrival and after the display on Saturday. The NDT team blabbed (showing off that they were working on the Vulcan ) that this was a regular post flight check, due to the fact the MLG was deemed serviceable but only with these post flight checks C/O. Also mentioning that these legs would be replaced or serviced and refitted once the airshow season was over.

Here are the fine gentleman carrying out there sneaky beaky work.

andys

hmm maybe it just a check over? A seperate company way brought in over the winter to do a full NDT using X-rays to look for hairline cracks and faliures