Avro Vulcan XH558

Avro Vulcan XH558 (military serial XH558, civil aircraft registration G-VLCN) The Spirit Of Great Britain was the last remaining airworthy example of the 134 Avro Vulcan jet powered delta winged strategic nuclear bomber aircraft operated by the Royal Air Force during the Cold War. It was the last Vulcan in military service, and the last to fly at all after 1986. It last flew on 28 October 2015.

Vulcan XH558 first flew in 1960, and was one of the few examples converted for a maritime reconnaissance role in 1973, and then again as an air-to-air refuelling tanker in 1982. After withdrawal in 1984 it continued with the RAF's Vulcan Display Flight, performing until 1992. In 1993 it was sold to C Walton Ltd who used it for ground based displays at their Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome in Leicestershire, until 1999. Through a combination of public donations and lottery funding, it was restored to airworthy condition by the Vulcan To The Sky Trust, who returned it to flight on 18 October 2007. The donations required to reach that point totalled £6.5m.

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Avro Vulcan

The Avro Vulcan (later Hawker Siddeley Vulcan from July 1963) is a jet-powered delta wing strategic bomber, which was operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF) from 1956 until 1984. Aircraft manufacturer A.V. Roe and Company (Avro) designed the Vulcan in response to Specification B.35/46. Of the three V bombers produced, the Vulcan was considered the most technically advanced and hence the riskiest option. Several scale aircraft, designated Avro 707, were produced to test and refine the delta wing design principles.

The Vulcan B.1 was first delivered to the RAF in 1956; deliveries of the improved Vulcan B.2 started in 1960. The B.2 featured more powerful engines, a larger wing, an improved electrical system and electronic countermeasures (ECM); many were modified to accept the Blue Steel missile. As a part of the V-force, the Vulcan was the backbone of the United Kingdom’s airborne nuclear deterrent during much of the Cold War. Although the Vulcan was typically armed with nuclear weapons, it was capable of conventional bombing missions, a capability which was used in Operation Black Buck during the Falklands War between the United Kingdom and Argentina in 1982.

Falklands War

The Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas), also known as the Falklands Conflict, Falklands Crisis, and the Guerra del Atlántico Sur (Spanish for "South Atlantic War"), was a ten-week war between Argentina and the United Kingdom over two British overseas territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It began on Friday, 2 April 1982, when Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands (and, the following day, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands) in an attempt to establish the sovereignty it had claimed over them. On 5 April, the British government dispatched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Air Force before making an amphibious assault on the islands. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with the Argentine surrender on 14 June 1982, returning the islands to British control. In total, 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders died during the hostilities.