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anyone know what time the vulcan should be going over ? i imagine i'll hear it anyway, but i can't go and it would be a shame to not stick my head out of the window at the right time and miss it.

Where I live on the edge of OT hill, I can hear planes at Fairford, it must be 20km away.

This morning on rising I thought Air Tattoo....it's always either that or the B-52's have arrived to bomb the crap out of the innocent people of some despotic Middle Eastern state.

about 3pm apparantly.

 [url width=445 height=286]http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getAsset.aspx?ItemID=19967[/url]

 

Sexy bit of kit that.

Airfix kit...

Was playing golf at South Cerney a few years back...the show was on and that black plane(phantom?) went straight over our heads..not a plane expert at all but it was brilliant.

don't get a buccaneer in your ear - fucking noisy beast

my uncle was a navigator in Vulcans through the 60s and 70s.

i once saw two stealth bombers flying out of fairford one sunday afternoon, it scared me shitless as they usually fly in and out at night, and with an F18 escort. it was at the time when georgia and russia were kicking off, i thought world war 3 was gonna start. yaaaaaaay.

Hearing the B-52's always chills me to the bone, knowing that innocent people will be slaughtered by a visitor from a field just down the road.

i remember being woken up by all the tankers the night they bombed tripoli

The vulcan is very quiet when it's not on full thrust. It has so much lift it can almost float along. I'm going tomorrow so hope to see it.
PS last time I saw it it came in real slow & quiet then just put the nose straight up & opened up. louder than Coincoirde & managed to set off all the car alarms which was brilliant

it was only "floored" for one burst today.

on the whole i was unimpressed by comparsion to the air tattoo's of my youth, it seemed a lot more low key and they had the same planes flying...just different nationalities.

Yes not as much variety this year, heard a lot of comments like that. Too many bloody Hawkes. Also what happened to the Sea Vixon?

The Vulcan display is a watered down version of what it once was, which is a shame but also understandable. The issue is once the engines are gone they are gone. No more available. They have a finite life, so they nurse here around a bit more to conserve "engine cycles". Should last another 8 years or so.

She was up a bit after 3 today, and displayed just after 4. The pilot was Martin Withers, the pilot who first took the Vulcan '607 to Stanley to bomb the runway in the Falklands conflict.

The Vulcan is sheduled to display between 3-4 tomorrow. Not sure if she is going to take of and go into display straight away or whether she'll take off display a bit later like today.

Only a slightly relted topic, this event caused traffic carnage yesterday. Cars were queued back down lane 1 of the M4 up to Commonhead and all the way down the A419. Just ask Fred. He's really not bitter about it :D

hmmmmmmmmm

4.5 hours to get to Hereford

1.5 hours to get back

it was the poor fuckers that were still sat on the 419 at Blunsdon at 11.30 going fucking no where when they had forked out decent money for a ticket that I felt really sorry for.

Tempers where becoming a little frayed shall we say

that's insane!
i don't understand why people would drive to somewhere like fairford when they do a very decent bus service from the bus station for a fiver there and back, and only takes about half an hour!

I know this may sound a little bizarre mate but I dont think that RIAT is exclusively open to the residents of Swindon alone.

It just may be that people came from further afield and didnt have a scooby about bus services and indeed where the fuck Swindon Bus Staion was if they did

Love

Fred x

They mention it (the bus) in the ticket literature. And it was an all ticket event. I drove. Got there early (took about 45 minutes , arrived at 8), left there late (took about 40 minutes, left at 7:15).

Queuing back to the M4 is taking the piss.  I know it was a sellout on Saturday but I thought the point about it being all ticket was to prevent this.

mentioned in ticket literature and presumably there are parking facilities near the bus station?

much love

andy

Guess they could have opened up the old park and ride for the weekend, it's only a short step off the A419!  Oh, and if you were travelling down the A419 in the full knowledge that RIAT was taking place and you were not actually going there, I think I might have found an alternative route, like Swindon/Malmesbury/Cirencester!

I left later Ronnie, thinking that most of the people would be in the fucking place by 11 - 11.30

Oh how wrong I was !!!

Should arrive by plane.

Didn't they have the cones in place, through traffic and Fairford traffic?  Last time I went that way on Fairford weekend it seemed to work quite well for through traffic.  Obviously not this year.  But I love your puppy Fred, the little girl looks lovely, it's just the guy in the shorts that sends a shiver down my spine! :dog:

Went yesterday & traffic was no problem. Left West Swindon (picking up sister & kids) at 7.30 got in for 8.30. Left at 6.00 pm after the red arrows back for 7.00.
Got soaked, but the vulcan was well worth it.
Like many have said a bit dissapointed about all the hawks on display. Not many attention grabbers apart from the Vulcan & Typhoon. Even the Harriers didn't do a display.
Still it answered the question of wht their aren't enough choppers in Afganistan. They were all at Fairford !

I get a free pass to the Farnborough Air Show every other July - in that we can pretty much watch the whole thing from the front drive.  One of the best weekends of the year.  Last year's highlight, for me, was the A380 Airbus.  Flies so low (and, it seems, so slowly) that you almost feel you can reach out and touch it.

The 380 was awesome last year. Went there instead of the washed out RIAT.

Apparently yesterday Vulcan display had a bit more about it than Saturdays. Grr. But at least I stayed dry :)

I saw that scary plane fly over last Friday when I went to Tesco?? I know it was that one cause it was like a triangle and Army coloured?? Its scared me cause I thought there was a war starting or something??

That's just thick

:) @ JFW.

Here is another uninteresting fact. The triangle (delta) shaped Vulcan was designed in the 1940's, first test flight in 1952 and first delivered to the RAF in 1956. By the time of the Falklands war it was being retired and they had to nick bits from here, there and everywhere (incl. museum planes) to get the electronics and fuel refuelling probe working as required.

Doesn't look too bad for a 60 year old design does it. Especially when just 5 years before the Lancaster was concidered state of the art. The same man, Roy Chadwick,  'designed' both planes, though unfortunately he died (in a plane crash) during the Vulcans development.

Another interesting fact, in the event of an emergency the pilot and co-pilot had ejector seats, the 5 others sat underneath the pilots (navigator, ordinance chap etc) had a small hatch to climb through one at a time. One of the first test flights crashed, the pilot and co-pilot ejected, the others didn't get out in time. :(

Indeed, and if the undercarriage was down at time of egress you were fucked even if you did get out the hatch/chute.

They were doing tours around the outside of '558 on Saturday. Couldn't resist, I'm amazed anyone could get out in an emergency other than the pilots. But they have done!

Sundays Vulan takeoff. A bit more aggressive than Saturday :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmRZqoEhPNA

That is bloody impressive!

jesus wept...on saturday he took off and just buggered off straight and then came back for a few fly pasts 20 minutes later

what ever floats your boat I suppose,to me that looks like a lot of wet people staring at a plane in a muddy field.

That clip brings a lump to the throat it does.

Silly, silly yeovil.

I know, but at least we were dry.

Would love to see the full on Vulcan display of old. The touch and go (straight up) is the thing people remember most for the noise.

Last Vulcan fact: In the early days test pilot Roly Falk showed it is possible to roll a Vulcan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4r0Kk-xX4o

quote of the thread, totally agree, are you all mental?

You have to see it to understand. The same as live football vs Televised football.

As an air traffic controller though I suppose you've seen it all before anyway.

Probably poncing about in a nice warm tower, feet on the desk, drinking tea and browsing the internet.

Pretty unique seeing the Vulcan & B52 flying together as well

I know that I have said it before, but from my Nan's back garden I could see all sorts. If I knew better at the time I could sell tickets.

Even if such a majestic beast as the Vulcan is not enough to float one's boat, then the low drone of a lone Lancaster flanked by some hurricanes and a Spit or two would surely be a stunning and emotional sight.............

Or is it just a geek thing?