The Cold War may have been the most interesting period for military aircraft development globally. Throughout the conflict, makers of aircraft from all over the world did all possible to push aviation’s limits and produce some of the most remarkable aircraft ever built. One nation that was doing precisely that and undoubtedly produced some outstanding machinery over the years was Britain. However, the Avro Vulcan stood out above all other aircraft when it came to its bomber force.
The Handley Page Victor and Vickers Valiant were also members of the V-Force of nuclear bombers, which also included the Vulcan. The Victor, with its crescent-shaped wing, was undoubtedly the most modern of the three aircraft, while the Valiant was the most traditional.
However, Vulcan was able to enthrall not only members of the military but also the general people. In RAF service until 1993, then later in private hands from 2008 to 2015, it made astounding airshow appearances that left onlookers in awe of the roar its engines made. The Vulcan was unquestionably the best bomber of the Cold War.
It’s amazing to imagine that the Vulcan was created as early as the late 1940s when German research on jet aircraft aided the Allied forces in developing their aircraft. The Air Operational Requirement OR.229, which called for a medium-range bomber capable of dropping a single 10,000 lb bomb on a target some 1,500 nautical miles away, gave rise to the Vulcan. The Avro 698 is a ground-breaking delta-winged aircraft that Roy Chadwick of the Avro business invented.
The delta wing alone would produce unbelievable levels of lift, and the plane would be almost entirely made out of wings, with the tail completely gone. This would ultimately develop into the Vulcan. Avro had never built a delta aircraft before, therefore they created five Avro 707 aircraft, which were essentially miniature Vulcans, to test the delta wing concept. The first took to the air in 1949, but tragically, Avro test pilot Eric Esler was killed when it crashed. Despite that mishap, the other four contributed some helpful information to the project, and the first Vulcan prototype, VX770, flew for the first time on August 30, 1952, and its potential was immediately apparent.
The enormous bomber was quickly put through its paces by legendary Avro test pilot Roland “Roly” Falk, who even managed to rotate the bomber at the Farnborough airshow—a maneuver that was later forbidden as being “unbecoming of a bomber.” The B.1 version and the B.2 variant of the aircraft were made after the two prototypes. The B.2s were different from the B.1s in that they had stronger Bristol Olympus engines than the original Olympus engines first installed in the B.1s and had a considerably more curved delta wing, giving it a larger wing area than the pure delta of the B.1.
The Olympus 101, 102, and 104 engine types were used in the B.1s, while the Olympus 201 was used in the B.2. The Vulcans were initially intended to be high-altitude nuclear bombers that could carry the famous Blue Steel nuclear missile while dodging Soviet air defenses. The aircraft immediately gained notoriety for its fighter-like maneuverability and the Vulcan howl sound, which was produced when the pilot applied full throttle and air rushed through the Olympus engine intakes.
However, as time went on, Soviet air defenses began to catch up with high-altitude bombers, and the Royal Air Force was given over to the Royal Navy and their submarines to handle nuclear weapons, and the Vulcans were converted to low-level bombing roles.
The Valiants, Victors, and Vulcans were all converted to low-level bombing rolls. Surprisingly, only Vulcan was capable of handling this new duty well. Due to their new low-level roll, the Valiants were experiencing severe wing spar cracking, and the Victor airframes soon developed fatigue cracks as well. Even the new air-to-air refueling variants experienced a swift departure, just like the Valiant. The Vulcan continued to operate as a low-level bomber while the Victors were transformed into tankers.
The 1982 Falklands War was Vulcan’s time of greatest glory. The RAF was aware they had to shut down Port Stanley when Argentina invaded the British territory of the Falkland Islands and took control of it. One Vulcan needed a large number of Victor tanks to complete Operation Black Buck, a series of strike sorties using the Vulcans that included a roundtrip distance of about 8,000 miles from Ascension Island to the Falklands.
The Port Stanley runway was hit directly by Vulcan XM607 during the most well-known Black Buck raid, rendering it useless for the duration of the fight.
After the war, the RAF had to make up for the airframe fatigue life it had wasted on its Victor force by using the last few Vulcans as airborne tankers. After six Vulcans were upgraded, the Vulcan was removed from RAF service in March 1984. Kind of. One Vulcan, XL426, was kept around for show purposes before being sold to a preservation trust and XH588 was installed in its place. This Vulcan was the first B.2 to be delivered to the RAF and ended up being the final one still in use.
The most well-known Vulcan at the time was XH588, which continued to fly until 1992 as a display aircraft before being retired as well. Surprisingly, after her final flight with the RAF in 1993, she flew once again in private hands from 2007 to 2015, flying at airshows throughout the UK and Europe and soon rising to become the most well-known Vulcan in the entire world.
The last Vulcan flight ever took place on October 28, 2015, after the engineering support needed for her operation ceased at the end of 2015. Her owners, the Vulcan To The Sky Trust, retired her at the end of that year. The Vulcan bomber was introduced to a whole new generation thanks to XH558, and it served as a reminder to others that this powerful delta wing aircraft had served as the greatest Cold War bomber.
