Gearing Up

摘要

With the mighty delta jacked up on stands and carrying out undercarriage retraction tests, the Vulcan to the Sky hangar at Bruntingthorpe, Leics, was vibrant with noise and movement, ready for the flight test programme to start in earnest. After the emotional return to the sky on October 18 last year, the pace was starting to build up again. Then, special guests and families had gathered on the airfield and masses of onlookers thronged every vantage point around the perimeter to witness a moment of history - a civilian Vulcan in the air. Sorties after that debut were alway going to be much more low-key. Dr Robert Pleming, chief executive of the Vulcan to the Sky Trust: "We carried out a lot of testing and learned much about its flying characteristics, but at the same time the flight needed to be high profile." The sorties scheduled for April 14 and 16, and others beyond, will take the Vulcan further through the list of trials, tests, and calibrations needed to bring it to another point of history. Successfully concluded, the Civil Aviation Authority will grant the first-ever Permit to Fly in the 'Complex' category.