User:Kazsta10/sandbox

The last flight of the Avro Vulcan XH558

One of the V-force￼￼ planes which were the backbone of Great Britains Royal Airforce during the cold war era, was the Avro Vulcan B2. The plane numbered XH558 was the last to leave RAF service serving as a display plane at Airshows in her last 6 years, on the 23rd of March 1993, she flew for what most at that time believed to be the last time

C￼￼ Walton Ltd purchased her from the ministry of defence. The company kept XH558 maintained, with the dream of one day retuning her to the skies of Great Britain.

A plan was being put together by a Dr Robert Pleming ￼￼ and David Walton (Managing Director of C. Walton Ltd, of Bruntingthorpe, Leicestershire),  the owner of Avro Vulcan B.Mk2 XH558 to return her to the skies. It was a massive undertaking, not just financially speaking, but also in terms of the complex technological work which needed doing.

In 1998, at the recommendation of British Aerospace, Marshall of Cambridgeshire Aerospace were deemed to have the skills needed to carry out the work that needed doing on XH558, and that they had the experience and high standards which would be needed by the Civil Aviation Authority, they were in agreement with the planned restoration as they believed the work would be done to the correct calibre. In 1990 Marshall Aerospace agreed to being the engineering authority for the task of restoring xh558.

By the year 2000, formal support was agreed to by all the manufacturers needed to carry out the restoration, and nothing was found during a technical review which would stand in the way of the project. The real issue was funding for the restoration. The sum needed was £3.5 million.

£2.7 million was granted in December 2003, after a successful application to the Heritage lottery fund ￼￼ ￼. Work began on the restoration, under the supervision of Marshall Aerospace technicians. In 2005 Vulcan to the skies trust, a registered charity bought xh558 for the public. Work began on the project that year, the team had employed some EX-RAF engineers, some of whom had worked on the Vulcans during their service years.

The general public also donated huge sums of money towards the restoration, and after all the safety checks were complete, one day in August 2007, the aircrafts Olympus engines were fired up. To absolutely make sure that she ready to take to the skies, XH558 underwent another two months of testing on the ground. ￼ October 18th 2007 was a day that goes down in history, after costs of over £7 million, and a long 14 years since her last flight, xh558 took off.