A final Vulcan visit

He rightly describes the Vulcan as an iconic aircraft and, not to put too fine a point on it, her presence can turn an air show from a fairly mundane occasion into something to remember.

As the bus driver, a long-time Guernsey resident, commented on my way back home from the Battle of Britain display, these last few years have lacked the big, noisy aircraft like the Vulcan, which put a bit of oomph into the air shows of 10-20 years ago.

Go to any air show where the Vulcan is flying and she always comes top of the pops when the spectators are asked. Only a week or so ago, she appeared at the Bournemouth air show (which, I might add, she does very frequently) and she was the favourite display of 59% of those there, with the Red Arrows coming second at 31% and the BBMF third with 6%.

The Vulcan also appears regularly at other holiday resorts such as Weston-super-Mare, Scarborough, Blackpool, Newcastle (County Down), Clacton-on-Sea, Shoreham-on-Sea and Southport as well as Bournemouth – and that is this year only – but never Guernsey.

The Vulcan was retired from RAF service in 1984, with Vulcan XH558 flying the display circuit until 1992. She was then grounded.

However, by dint of hard work by the Vulcan to the Sky (VTST) organisation (all volunteers and funded by donations of several million pounds from the public and industry) XH558 was finally returned to the air in 2007.

I do not know when the Vulcan last appeared in a Guernsey air show, but it was more than 30 years ago. We have only seen her once since the 1980s and that was a low-level pass across the airport in 2008 or 9 as she returned home to her base from an air show at, guess where – yes, Jersey.

Time now has nearly run out. 2015 will be the last year in which anybody will be able to see XH558 in flight. There are only a limited number of hours of flying life left for her Olympus engines to be run safely. When those hours are used up, the engines will be deemed unfit for flight. Unfortunately, there are no replacement engines and there are no prospects of any becoming available. However, by careful husbanding of how the aircraft is flown, VTST is confident that XH558 will be able to fly for just one more season.

If she doesn't come to Guernsey next year, she will never be seen here again.

2015 is the 70th anniversary of Liberation. Could not the Guernsey States fork out some extra money to fund a visit by XH558 as part of the 70th anniversary of Liberation celebrations? It might even attract some visitors over here if it was trumpeted early enough in the holiday trade. Although I hesitate to say it, if the States really couldn't spare enough money to bring XH558 over here, perhaps it could be done in partnership with Jersey, since I believe they also celebrate Liberation Day at the same time as we do.

TONY LEE,

Les Salines,

Le Vallon,

St Martin's, GY4 6DN.