Talk:Avro Vulcan XH558

Last?
The opening paragraph describes G-VLCN as the last example of an airworthy Vulcan. This is a rather presumptive finite. Although XL426 G-VJET and XM655 G-VULC are not airworthy, there is no reason to doubt why they could not become in the future as both are taxyable and both have loving and caring owners. I would (and have) change this to "only" or "current". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.66.54.83 (talk) 14:03, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * No problem with changing last to only - but I have removed current as wp is not a crystal ball and any museum Vulcan could be put in the air with enough money in the future. MilborneOne (talk) 18:49, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

RIAT 2008
The article says that 'the aircraft was not ready for...the Royal International Air Tattoo' - which is incorrect. The aircraft did not fly at RIAT, but only because the show was cancelled! The aircraft was in a flyable condition with the correct CAA permits to display, there is an article on the RIAT website somewhere giving details specific to the vulcan in relation to the cancellation WARlrus (talk) 02:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Updates; airshows
I have removed some wording that had become stale ("in 2008 it will…"). Also, the tables of air show appearances probably contravene WP:INDISCRIMINATE; at the very least they will soon start to overshadow the rest of the article. I think it best that they be removed, and key appearances only be listed in a prose paragraph. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:20, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I very much doubt the Vulcan will be flying long enough for an appearance list to overshadow the article. Frankly, given the precarious nature of flying it now, a detailed run-down of every appearance is notable. Sources notwithstanding. MickMacNee (talk) 02:40, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, I have been updating this year's show dates, as the information was there, but incomplete/out of date, but agree that this is now looking a bit silly, and should be replaced by "significant" events. If she only flies for a couple more seasons it will crowd out the rest of the information. --IdreamofJeanie (talk) 10:59, 26 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm inclined to agree with Andy here; the tables are too long and detailed (not to mention unsourced) and a summary would be more encyclopedic. --John (talk) 19:35, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Flying in 2012
The article says "The aircraft was returned to flight for the 2012 Farnborough International Airshow[21] and has subsequently displayed throughout the 2012 season." - This may need changing based on the fact I saw it fly over Milton Keynes yesterday. I have no idea what it was doing or where it was going though so could somebody who's in the know find a source? Thanks! Tom walker (talk) 10:34, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Surely all that means is that the 2012 season hasn't ended yet? Britmax (talk) 10:56, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It was a special tour of Britain to mark the end of the 2012 season and to commemorat the 60th anniversary of the first flight. All the airfields and sites flown over had some connection with the aircraft refer http://www.vulcantothesky.org/news/402/82/Tour-map-and-details.html MilborneOne (talk) 13:32, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Blackpool?
Perhaps I'm not looking hard enough, but I don't see a surviving or displayed Vulcan listed as being at Blackpool International Airport. It can be clearly seen in Google Maps, a few hundred yard SSE of B5262 and A5230, parked in the extreme NW corner of the airport, off the tarmac on a grassy lot. --Rpapo (talk) 16:50, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The List of surviving Vulcans article was deleted, as Google Maps wasn't considered an adequate source.(!) Andy Dingley (talk) 17:24, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Since XL391 was reported scrapped in 2006, perhaps they had a point.GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:22, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * A list of surviving Vulcans has nothing to do with this article which is about XH558 only, refer to Avro Vulcan for a list. MilborneOne (talk) 20:31, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Oops. Posted on the the wrong talk page. Oh well. It's not for nothing that Google Maps has a "time machine" control on it now. So the Vulcan was destroyed after the satellite picture was taken. That explains the mystery. --Rpapo (talk) 19:36, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

The Vulcan Howl
I feel this is a noteworthy feature of XH558, but I shoehorned it into the "restoration" section rather than make a new section for just 2 sentences. It deserves mention but someone may want to move it or change the formatting to keep the article looking professional. Thanks! &#32;- Syd (talk) 19:30, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Too much detail
There is no need for every single appearance the pane has made to be listed. Selected highlights only please. --John (talk) 20:17, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Does this article need a Background section?
The Vulcan was a strategic bomber, powered by four jet engines housed inside its distinctive Delta shape wing, a design resulting from the need to provide the necessary structural strength and aerodynamic properties within the limits of the maximum weight and bomb bay size. Capable of carrying nuclear and conventional weapons, it was used by the Royal Air Force during the Cold War to counter the nuclear and military threat of the Soviet Union. At the highest level of readiness, on receipt of a scramble order the Vulcan could be on the runway ready to take off within two minutes. Collectively the Vulcan ad its contemporary swept wing strategic bombers Vickers Valiant and Handley Page Victor were known as the V bomber force. The Vuclan had no defensive weaponry, instead relying on its speed, altitude and later electronic counter-measures to defeat enemy air-defences. It was also highly maneuverable at low altitude, a requirement of early nuclear bomb delivery methods. Although not an original design goal, its design also proved to be advantageous in terms of having a low radar cross-section. As air-defences developed, low-flying tactics had to be adopted for the approach to target areas, necessitating the change in paint scheme from anti-flash white to camouflage.

A total of 136 Vulcans were produced between 1956 and 1965, with the first entering operational service on 20 May 1957. Primarily based in Britain for the European theatre, Vulcans were also based further afield for potential conventional operations (but not ultimately used) in the Mediterranean for use in the Middle East and in the Far East for use in Indonesia. The fleet also routinely flew training missions as far afield as North America, Asia and Australia. By 1969, the primary responsibility for providing a nuclear deterrent had passed to the Royal Navy. In 1973 a small number were converted to maritime reconnaissance aircraft. By 1979 it had been decided the Vulcan was redundant, with the first being sent for scrap in December 1980. The only offensive operations for the Vulcan came in the 1982 Falklands War, by which time only 32 were still in service. The best 10 were selected for use on the Black Buck raids. As a stop-gap measure resulting from the Falklands operations, 6 Vulcans were converted to tankers. The last operational bomber squadron disbanded on 27 December 1982. The last Vulcans in service were the 6 tankers and a few other standard aircraft as trainers, all with 50 Squadron, which disbanded on 31 March 1984.

Today I added the above as a Background section, to summarise the military aspects of the Vulcan, so that the rest of the article, about this one particular Vulcan, can be put into some kind of context. It was removed by MilborneOne on the basis that a link to Avro Vulcan suffices, and he seems to think it's unusual to have such Background sections. I strongly disagree - I've seen plenty of Background sections elsewhere, and I don't think the introduction of the main Vulcan article could (or even should) ever provide enough context for a novice reader to understand this article. And by average reader, I mean someone who knows nothing about aircraft, let alone the finer points of strategic bombers - obviously to an expert or someone interested in military history/aviation, a lot of this Background is just obvious. Imho an average reader isn't likely to wade through the whole of the quite detailed and technical Vulcan article just to find out the sort of basic contextual information that's relevant to XH558 that I've included above, but which is frankly too detailed to be justifiably included in the introduction to the main Vulcan page either. Without a Background section, I think this article will manifestly fail to educate the average reader about XH558 (that's not to say any of the rest is any good right now, but I'm trying to improve that as fast as I can). Natural Ratio (talk) 18:39, 6 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I clearly think that most of the information is covered in the Vulcan article but perhaps a lot briefer start of the history section to put the aircraft in context may be better but I would still object the your originally suggested text. MilborneOne (talk) 18:52, 6 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I think you've missed the point. It's meant as a Background section for this article, so obviously by definition, everything it says should exist somewhere else on Wikipedia (mostly in the main Vulcan article). If any of it isn't in the main article, it should be added. But it's also not meant to be trivially brief - it's meant as the opening section of this article to provide proper context for the rest, and so imho you'd expect it to go into more detail than that which is given in the introduction of the main Vulcan article. If you think it shouldn't be any more detailed than the introduction, then I quite agree that having a Background section at all would be pointless as it would be entirely redundant to simply giving people the link. To give you some specific examples - I think it's important contextual information for this article to give the precise date of when the Vulcans stopped being operational bombers, and to say explain that at the height of readiness they could be scrambled within 2 minutes, and to make it clear that they were designed for both high altitude running but were also meant to be maneuverable at low level - I think that's all information that would help readers understand why people thought restoring and displaying XH558 was so important. But I'm struggling to justify in my own mind whether that's the sort of information you'd expect to see in the basic introduction of the Vulcan article. I hope you can see the difference. My fear is that if it's not in a Background section here, the average reader is simply not going to bother even trying to find it in the main article, because it's extremely big and detailed (as you'd expect). Natural Ratio (talk) 19:16, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The current article lead descibes the aircraft as "the only 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." - that's sufficient background for this article. The proposed background section is way too detailed, off-topic and not how such articles are normally structured. DexDor(talk) 19:47, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Can you explain to me what you think is the difference between an introduction and background information, because it seems to me as if you think they're one and the same thing? Natural Ratio (talk) 20:46, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * that's sufficient background for a lead section, but I think readers would be well served with a little more detail in the body to help understand the context, instead of assuming that they will visit those five separate articles and piece it together themselves. (Of course, if they want a lot more detail, the links are there for their perusal). -- saberwyn 23:28, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * That isn't how we normally structure articles in wp; the chances are high that anyone arriving at a specific-example-of-X article will (1) already have a fair idea of what an X is and (2) understand that if they click on a link they'll get more info. For example, the Methane article doesn't explain what a chemical compound is. DexDor(talk) 06:08, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd say the chances are high that the average person reading this article simply arrived here after seeing an airshow or a news item and simply googling. Those people aren't likely to have the first clue about Vulcans beyond the fact it's a plane. Natural Ratio (talk) 17:47, 7 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Of course it needs a background section. To do otherwise is to assume that the audience is both British and a planespotter, or has knowledge equivalent to one. The only real question is how large such a section needs to be and what it should cover. The recently removed section was compact, yet covered what was needed. I would support it.
 * Topics that need coverage, as relevant to the history and significance of XH558, would include:
 * The role of the V bombers, as free-fall white bombers, stand-off Blue Steel carriers, low-level camo bombers. This is why the Vulcan has such a place in the collective memory.
 * The Falklands and Black Buck.
 * MRR and K2 roles, as part of XH558's own history
 * Andy Dingley (talk) 19:58, 6 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Summary style is the editing guideline. As there are links to the main Vulcan article in the lead and infobox there is no need to duplicate any of the content in this 'child' article. The 'background' is the RAF service sections. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by)    20:01, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * There is nothing in Summary style of relevance here. It discusses the level of summary in the broader article that describes the sub article. It does not cover the level of background context needed in the sub article. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:09, 6 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm not seeing the relevance of Summary either, that only seems relevant as far as deciding how much detail to include in the section of the Vulcan article (the parent) about XH558 as a summary of this page (the child). But if you look at the principles of 'Levels of desired details', that seems to support using Background sections - quite clearly the introduction of the Vulcan article isn't big enough or detailed enough to anticipate all the questions a reader of this article might have about Vulcans, yet expecting them to read the entire page is total overkill as well, as clearly only a small minority of readers of this page will want that much detail. That's basically what I was trying to explain above. Natural Ratio (talk) 20:41, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * At best, a small section on the Vulcan's history would suffice as the Avro Vulcan XH558 and Avro Vulcan articles are both quite extensive and have many wikilinks already. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 21:41, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

In trying to see what other unique aircraft such as Boeing B-29 Superfortress Fifi) and Avro Lancaster PA474 had in the way of Wiki articles, they have a much more abbreviated style, and do not have a background section. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 21:54, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * So because Other Stuff Doesn't Exist, this article must follow the limitations of others? Andy Dingley (talk) 22:22, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

I believe I agree with MilborneOne, although the edit may have been too drastic. Relying on a few links to Vulcan articles is too litte, and the two extensive paragraphs are too much. I'd think something about half as long as the extended version above would suffice to provide required information for the average encyclopedia user. For example, I'd think the last bit could be reduced to:


 * The only offensive operations for the Vulcan came in the 1982 Falklands War, when 10 were used in Operation Black Buck. The last operational bomber squadron disbanded in 1982.  The last Vulcans in service were 6 tankers, converted as a stop-gap measure after the Falklands War and a few trainers, all with No. 50 Squadron RAF, which disbanded in 1984.--Lineagegeek (talk) 22:37, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

It might be worth reflecting on what this article would look like if it was to reach GA/A-class/FA standard. I think that reviewers at those levels would expect to see some background on this type of aircraft explaining the significance of the type (which in turn explains why people have gone to so much trouble and expense to keep this example flying). The background section which was removed ticks a lot of these boxes, and I'd suggest returning it to the article. Nick-D (talk) 22:50, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

I support the idea of a background section in this article, to give readers a basic and broad understanding of how and why aircraft of this type came about, what they were capable of, and what they were used for, so readers have some context with which to understand what this specific aircraft was and did (without having to bounce through several other articles to piece it together by themselves). I tend to work on warships, not planes, and several high-ranking individual ship articles have (roughly analogous) "Design and Construction" sections (see HMS Ark Royal (91) as example), which cover the concept and capabilities of the class. I think the proposed text is broadly suitable (fine-tuning of, I leave to regular editors of flying things), though I would probably slap a Avro Vulcan link at the top of the section so that those readers who want more detailed info can easily find it, and think a small paragraph of technical specifications would not be amiss. -- saberwyn 23:21, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The HMS_Ark_Royal_(91) article isn't analogous at all; she was not one of a mass-produced class of ships - so the Design and Constructions sections of that article are about that specific ship and there's no parent article about a "Ark Royal class ship" to link to. A closer analogy would be something like HMS Ardent (F184); that article doesn't duplicate large amounts of info from the Type 21 frigate article - it assumes that if the reader wants info about that class of ship they'll go to the linked article. DexDor(talk) 06:08, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
 * If you want a mass-produced ship FA-class article (per the point Nick-D makes above, and instead of the C-class article you counterexampled with) HMS Cardiff (D108)'s "Construction" section describes the ship in the context of the overall class, with technical details and intended duties, as do the fairly detailed "Design" and "Acquisition and construction" sections in HMAS Australia (1911). -- saberwyn 06:30, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The info in the Construction section of the Cardiff article mostly relates specifically to Cardiff (rather than to the class) - e.g. both paragraphs refer to the Cardiff. In contrast, the text proposed above makes no mention of XH558; it's not describing XH558 in the context of the class - it's describing the class. DexDor(talk) 07:01, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Aren't the first three sections of the article the background?Keith-264 (talk) 18:46, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes and no. They wouldn't be there if the aircraft hadn't become famous after those events, but then again, they're not meant to be a general rundown of the military service of all Vulcans. This was clearer when the first 8 sections were grouped as 'History', but for reasons that still escape me but which he also claims is just standard practice, MilborneOne decided to remove that grouping and let people figure it out for themselves. Natural Ratio (talk) 19:48, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

The Vulcan was a strategic bomber, powered by four jet engines housed inside its distinctive Delta shape wing, a design resulting from the need to provide the necessary structural strength and aerodynamic properties within the limits of the maximum weight and bomb bay size. The Vuclan had no defensive weaponry, instead relying on its speed, altitude and later electronic counter-measures to defeat enemy air-defences. It was also highly maneuverable at low altitude, a requirement of early nuclear bomb delivery methods. Although not an original design goal, its design also proved to be advantageous in terms of having a low radar cross-section. As air-defences developed, low-flying tactics had to be adopted for the approach to target areas, necessitating the change in paint scheme from anti-flash white to camouflage. Primarily based in Britain for the European theatre, Vulcans were also based further afield for potential conventional operations (but not ultimately used) in the Mediterranean for use in the Middle East and in the Far East for use in Indonesia. The fleet also routinely flew training missions as far afield as North America, Asia and Australia.

I've just done a major revision, to try and make the the structure a little better by having both a history section and below it various topical sections. I also added a few more bits and pieces, and rewrote some more, even though I wasn't planning to. So just for that reason people might like to take a second look at the article as a whole. I was also able to incorporate some of the proposed background in the various new sections, where in my opinion it looks appropriately in context. Above in V2 is what was left - do people still think that this needs to be added as a Background section? I think I'm less persuaded now, but still leaning toward having it. Natural Ratio (talk) 20:11, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Deletion listing
Articles for deletion/List of Avro Vulcan XH558 post-restoration public appearances  Andy Dingley (talk) 22:27, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Locomotive named after XH558
Direct Rail Services has renumbered a class 37 locomotive 37558 and named it Avro Vulcan XH558. Not sure where this should go in the article. 167.123.240.35 (talk) 06:36, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

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Engine fire bottle
Maybe a new article is needed for Engine fire bottle? A good place to start might be here. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:10, 8 July 2017 (UTC)