A sad day for aviation history.

Why such a sad day? Because it was the last time I'll ever see one of the most iconic and instantly recognisable pieces of British military hardware flying.The only airworthy Vulcan XH558 will be retired at the end of this season as they've run out of other Vulcans to cannibalise for spares.These photos were taken at Dunsfold in Surrey (home of our Top Gear program) at the Wings and Wheels day on August 29th this year.It's very last scheduled display will be at Old Warden (The Shuttleworth Collection) this sunday,then back to it's home of Robin Hood airport at Nottingham where it will be kept in a taxiable condition.I remember seeing four of these monsters take off together at Scampton (or was it Waddington?) in the 1970s and I've to this day to hear anything that comes anywhere close to how loud this was (including top fuel dragsters).

This was the last VC10 ever made and is still my all time favourite jet airliner.Modern airliners might be fantastic pieces of engineering,but to me are just mass produced tin cans with no heart or soul compared to something like the VC10 that was designed to be as elegant and beautiful as any airliner has ever been.I seem to remember they were loved by pilots as being fantastic to fly,and when BOAC and British Caledonian were still flying them I always made a point of watching them take off or land.This one is kept in non-flying condition,so sadly can only be started up and taxied.

It is/was an amazing thing to see in person, I had the pleasure earlier this year.

You would certainly know it was coming, thats for sure.

Oh, and the noise when it pulled into a near vertical climb, such a roar.

Great photo's. We used to have one as a gate guardian at Blackpool Airport for years, an old page about its sad demise:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I was at a suppliers down south once and they were supporting the Vulcan rebuild and flight certification, there on the repairs shelf next to Hawk, Tornado and Typhoon parts was a area marked Vulcan and some shiny looking parts had been refurbished.

I said is that the Vulcan, and they said yes, they were refurbishing some parts for it.

Shame what with 3d printing and 6 axis CNC we can't replace the parts and keep our history flying, they should give more lottery grants!

Thank you for the pics! I'll raise a glass in its honor