The pictures you've been waiting for

Like many of the vast crowd at Farnborough 2008 there was one entry on the flying display programme that was the real draw. Red Arrows? Good, but seen them many times before. Airbus A380? New and impressive, but at the end of the day it's a commercial airliner. No, I wanted to see a famous and iconic piece of British aviation history that last flew more than fifteen years ago until a dedicated group restored her and put her back in the air. In only her second public set of displays since being granted a licence a couple of weeks earlier, Avro Vulcan XH558 was due to fly.

During the earlier displays I'd watched as she was attended to by her groundcrew; eventually, as the scheduled display time approached, her lights came on, the engines started and she taxied away from the north dispersal down to the eastern end of the runway. The crowd behind me fell silent.

Then XH558 began her takeoff roll.



( Lots and lots of Vulcan pictures - click to enlarge )

Congratulations to the Vulcan to the Skies Trust for the incredible achievement of getting XH558 back in the air again. I hear that they are starting to add more display venues to their programme over the summer (hopefully the idea of doing two displays during the trade days at Farnborough brought in some corporate sponsorship) so she may be coming soon to an airfield near you.

Farnborough 2008 - Typhoon

Good heavens, did I take a lot of pictures at Farnborough. About 650 in all, although that's in part because I was using continuous-shoot mode quite a bit to try to capture some of the more spectacular bits of formation flying. It's taking me a while to select, clean up and post the good ones, so you'll be getting a steady stream for a while yet. Here are a few from the Eurofighter Typhoon display, which really did make the subsequent F-16 routine look rather pedestrian.

( Fast and Loud )