vulcanxm569

On Tuesday 7th June 2011, The Flying Shack got its own Gate Guardian in the shape of the nose section of Avro Vulcan B.2 XM569.

XM569 had been delivered to the RAF in January 1963 and had served on the Scampton Wing armed with Blue Steel. In December 1965, she was returned to the manufacturers at Woodford for a retrofit and conversion to free fall. XM569 returned to service at RAF Scampton in August 1966 then Waddington in November 1966.

In 1983, the aircraft was flown to Cardiff (Rhoose) where she joined an Air Museum, but corrosion took its toll and the aircraft (except for the nose section) was eventually scrapped. The Jet Age Museum at Gloucestershire Airport took the cockpit on loan from the owner, Gary Spoors and used it for cockpit displays but she fell into disuse in recent years and lay in a far corner of the airfield. We've now set her up on her display stand, and in the near future The Jet Age Museum will run visitors days, where you'll be able to go into the cockpit and marvel at the old 1950s/60s technology of a genuine Cold War jet bomber.

The Avro Vulcan, sometimes referred to as the Hawker Siddeley Vulcan, is a delta wing subsonic jet strategic bomber that was operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF) from 1953 until 1984. It was developed by Avro in response to a specification released by the Air Ministry. At the time, both jet engines and delta wings were considered cutting-edge and relatively unexplored; thus, the small-scale Avro 707 was produced to test the principles of the design. In flight, the Vulcan was an agile aircraft for its size.

The Vulcan B.1 was first delivered to the RAF in 1956. In service, the Vulcan was armed with nuclear weapons and was a part of the RAF's V bomber force, the United Kingdom's airborne deterrent against aggression from other powers such as the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Features such as an extensive electronic countermeasures suite and a low radar cross section for its size would have made the aircraft difficult to detect while carrying out the nuclear strike mission. A second batch of aircraft, the B.2, was produced with new features, including a larger wing and greater fuel capacity, along with more advanced electronics and radar systems.

The B.2s were adapted into several other variants, the B.2A carrying the Blue Steel missile, the B.2 (MRR) for Marine Radar Reconnaissance use, and the K.2 tanker for aerial refuelling. The Vulcan was also used in the secondary role of conventional bombing near the end of its service life in the 1982 Falklands War against Argentina during Operation Black Buck. One example, XH558, was recently restored for use in display flights and commemoration of the employment of the aircraft in the Falklands conflict.