The Vulcan was one of three ‘V’ bombers which grew out of an Operational Requirement for a bomber to follow the piston engined Lincoln. The design birth of the Vulcan lies back around 1946.  These were the days of early, very large, Atomic bombs and the Cold War.

Jimmie Robb’s picture of the Vulcan as umbrella.

The other two V Bombers were the Valiant and the Victor, both aircraft were to experience metal fatigue, but in the case of the Valiant it was bad enough to cause it to be withdrawn from service after about a quarter of its expected airframe life. The Valiant is the only one of the three types to have actually dropped a live nuclear weapon, albeit in tests.

The Vulcan was famously involved in the ‘Black Buck’ attacks on Port Stanley during the Falklands War and the Victor was an essential Tanker asset in the ‘91 Gulf War.

This excellent photo of XH588 was used in The Independent newspaper in the ‘90s. I bought a large copy of it which hangs in my study.

A great shot of the Vulcan by Chris Knox from a collection of photos I bought from him.  Airbrakes slightly extended the aircraft is over RAF Waddington, and Lincoln cathedraol is just visible in the top middle of the photo. On the right side of the photo, just in front of the port wing is the ‘special weapons’ storage area.  Behind the fin is the large circle used for doping ‘compass swings’. The main runway is just visible on the left of the photo close to the starboard wing tip. It looks like an old white Victor at the bottom of the picture, probably used for training for fire crews.

The Vulcan is very easily identifiable because of its distinctive ‘delta’ wing form, this wing helped to make the aircraft look larger than either the Valiant or the Victor, and the early production models, the B.1 variant, had a very straight leading edge to the delta. The B2 on which I flew had the ‘stepped’ leading edge, clearly seen in the photo below. The shot also shows the delta shape, and how much the aircraft is dominated by the wing platform.

Photo J Dillon

The aircraft was large; just over 105ft long including the refuelling probe, 111ft wingspan and 27ft to the top of the fin.  Maximum take-off weight was 204,000lb with a normal landing weight of 140,000lb and powerd by 4 Olympus Mk 301 series engines.  The combination gave an aircraft that has thrilled many at air displays with its ability to rotate and climb at a rate that belies its large size. However, for all its size the crew compartment was small with the majority of the airframe being taken up with engines, fuel tanks and bomb bay. In the photo below the crew area is from just forward of the engine air intakes to the front of the pilots’ canopy, the entrance door for the drew is open.  Compare this small area with the size of the aircraft in the photo above.

Photo J Dillon, taken at Goose Bay around about 1972/3

In the photo below you can see that the area taken up by the bomb-bay is a substantial part of the centre fuselage and allows the Vulcan to carry a conventional bomb load of 21 x 1000lb bombs. These are mounted on three bomb carriers, 7 bombs per carrier, see the page related to the bomb bay and bomb load. In the photo you can see a couple of the main transverse beams from which the bomb carriers will be slung.  Also, at the rear of the bomb bay is a large drum tank, this is an additional fuel tank, it can also take one in the front of the bay. For the nuclear role the aircraft carried one weapon in the bay.

Photo from the web

The Vulcan was always a fairly dramatic looking aircraft, it looked ‘the biz’at that time, although now it would look somewhat dated against the Tornado or an F18. It always looked its size when it landed and then ‘streamed the chute’ for braking effect, as the Chris Knox photo below shows.  Also shown in the photo are the air-brakes extended above the starboard wing, basically two large metal plates to create drag, just visible under the same wing is the single ‘plate’ of the air-brake that extends under the wing.  Obviously there will be the same configuration above and below the port wing.

Photo Chris Knox

The photo below is from Andy Leitch’s site, though I believe it may be Crown Copyright.

Lovely shot of three airframes in formation, in the original white paintwork for the high level nuclear strike role.

Jimmie Robb sent me this, it’s from The Arizona Daily Star.  The aircraft was on a display tour, but as you can see, in the rain it’s a great umbrella.  Jimmie said he put this in the Station magazine and had a ‘Hats on’ interview with the station commander.