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Avro Vulcan in my hangar. (Sort of)


Stu_davros

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I recently had this picture sent to me:

 

vR5ZhAD.jpg

 

 

It's taken in the hangar that I work in so today I tried taking a current version:

 

XhITH4c.jpg

 

It's a little off but the best I could do.

 

Does anyone have any idea of a date of the first picture or the particular Vulcan in the image?

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I think that it is a Vulcan B.1.  The first few delivered were painted overall aluminium finish, beginning with XA889 in 1956 and (probably) finishing with XA900 in 1957 since XA901 was the first to be delivered in overall anti-flash White.

 

This narrows the above to 12 serials from XA889 to XA900 if my info is correct.  As luck will have it, the two technicians working on the wing airbrakes are blocking the view of the serial, which is partly visible on the tail in black letters/numbers.  The serial is also repeated on the lower part of the door under the nose, but I cannot read it.

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On 5/25/2022 at 4:28 AM, ColinChipmunkfan said:

Any guesses as to the identity of the aeroplane in front of the Vulcan?🙂 Camouflaged Vulcan?

Colin

 

I'd say Lincoln

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On 5/24/2022 at 9:36 PM, Hepster said:

I think that it is a Vulcan B.1.  The first few delivered were painted overall aluminium finish, beginning with XA889 in 1956 and (probably) finishing with XA900 in 1957 since XA901 was the first to be delivered in overall anti-flash White.

 

This narrows the above to 12 serials from XA889 to XA900 if my info is correct.  As luck will have it, the two technicians working on the wing airbrakes are blocking the view of the serial, which is partly visible on the tail in black letters/numbers.  The serial is also repeated on the lower part of the door under the nose, but I cannot read it.

 

My (admittedly limited research) seems to suggest that the metallic finish aircraft were ministry of supply aircraft for test and research. I guess this would be why it's being maintained at RAE Farnborough.

Does anyone know when they were retired? This might give a clue as to when the picture was taken.

 

Thanks for everyones replies, I'm not a vulcan expert by any measure.

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  • 3 weeks later...

This has been correctly identified as a Vulcan B1. The image doesn’t clearly show if it has a Phase 1 or Phase 2 wing, but I believe the examples with Phase 1 wings all had double air brakes on the underside, which this one does not so those can be ruled out. I’m unsure if the Vulcans built with phase 1 wings refitted to phase 2 had the air brakes changed or not.

Unfortunately B1s are difficult to identify without a serial visible as there were far less minor features that differed between airframes that are visually prominent enough to see easily than the B2, which has features like skybolt hard points, jammers, ecm plates, differing engine types, etc to help identify them.

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  • 1 month later...

I am pretty sure this is XA891

 

There is a picture on the Aviation Photo Company website of it outside and the nose colours are the same.  The photograph is before 24th July 1959 as the aircraft was destroyed in a non-fatal accident near Waddington.  My guess would be this was shortly after delivery as it is prior to the rest of the nose being painted black which happened some time in 1955

 

 

 

https://www.aviationphotocompany.com/p685250155/h1C2405E#h1c2405e 

Edited by Dave Charles
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