......long live british engineering!
Well, a certain plane which is very close to my heart has now had its Major completed ready for first flight. For me this is great news as this aircraft is the last 100% British designed aircraft we did and its VERY unlikely we will do any more since the demise of our aircraft industry. It was also the building block from which Concorde was desgned and was used to test the Concorde, TSR2 and the current Tornado engines!
Its sad to think that this design was completed some 50 years ago.........
So yes, the Vulcan is back with first flight due in the next few weeks, this will be followed by further test flights and then a few displays this season which will be simple fly pasts until a display license is granted. See here for further details:
www.tvoc.co.ukThe fact that its back ready to fly is one HELL of an achievement with people putting in 16 hour shifts and working flat out to do it. I was lucky enough to go and see it in the hanger again yesterday and it certainly looks fantastic.
Interestingly, there has been a lot of items removed during this work, some 30 tons of stuff. As a result its close to being able to be sat on its tail and launched verticaly due to the large amount of power the 4 Olympus 201's produce (it was always hugely over powered!)
Last week saw all 4 engines running at full chat, it apparantly upset a local resident, not the noise but, the tiles rattling on his roof from the jet blast!
So, long live british engineering......even if we are no longer capable of designing such marvels any more.