Delta lady, broadcaster issues?

As it happened, I'd have preferred my first sighting of a Vulcan in the air in sixteen years to be a tad more relaxing, and my first photograph of the same to be a bit better than it was. And I'd like a serious word with the BBC.... But little mind, the delta winged beast still has it as far as I'm concerned; an inanimate artificial object shouldn't have presence, but a live Vulcan has, and it's something special.

As things turned out, the BBC reported it at Cottesmore (.... knew that of course, it had come in the previous day for work, and arrived with an wiring fault) and was going to depart at 1400. That's two pm in English money. All morning, all sources said "1400". Late in the morning, a certain blogger, not far away looked at his watch, did a quick calculation and thought "yeah, why not". So I grabbed the Bosscam, and minimal gear; jumped into the Funbuggy, aka GLC and started off west. Traffic's awful. Roads are poor. But at least the weather's a high overcast and the light was good for the Bigma, that lens relies strongly on decent light being available. And remember, the jet's due to fly at 1400. And there's bags of time to get myself to the end of runway 22 and get the specific shot I want of the Vulcan flight. Except of course, the BBC are lying bastards and as I pulled up at 1345 among the hundreds of cars lining the lanes around the base, I could hear four jet engines being put up to power, and I glimpsed it through the trees and thought "shite, it's not bloody taxi'ing, it's bloody going" before parking the car firmly on a roadside and leaping from the drivers seat, camera in hand. I could not possibly have cut that finer if I'd have tried. All in all, I'd have liked to have had my first airbourne Vulcan picture in sixteen years to be somewhat better than....

... that. Hmmmm. As aviation piccies go, that's one to be forgotten. Unlike the jet, which I don't think even The Stig could handle around the Top Gear track. One hundred and Eleven feet span of sheer testosterone wrapped up in curvy, underwear model lines. Ho yuss. Annoyed, I was, Precious. Used a number of naughty words, probably louder than I should. At the same time though, it was lovely to see it shift for real, to pull the nose back at rotation rather than popping the brake chute, as it has been in fast taxi runs since '92. As it happened, I got to see a bit more of it than I planned, due to the fact that it had a small snag - an undercarriage door stuck down - and the pilot needed to make repeated passes of the airfield before he gave it up as a bad job and made off to Brunty', where it lives. A chap called Withers on board, I'm given to understand, who flew the first Falklands Vulcan mission in May 1982, although not in this particular jet (that one's at Waddington as a museum piece). Multiple passes of the runway are the order of the day, during which time your chubby correspondent tests out his new and improved cardiovascluar system by running around the perimeter of a ploughed field in workboots carrying about a ton of camera. Not dead yet, folks, something must be working.

Made it to the spot where I'd actually planned to be all along, just in time for the pilot to decide he'd achieved all he was going to in this patch of sky. Typical. Never mind, it was fun while it lasted, and definately not a wasted journey. Looking forward to burning up plenty of pixels on this beasty in the summer!

So there we were; had seen a sky full of V Bomber again, the crowds (oh yes folks, there were many there) had cleared off and I had a base more or less to myself. A few diehards hung on, but all was pretty quiet until we got a little bit of action. A senior pilot took a jet up for a final testflight after repairs... this was the bird that had to divert into Newcastle a month or so back after smashing the cockpit open while refuelling; and flew complete with Iraq mission markings, which was very cool. The pilot taxi'd past the photographers on the way out, and performed the Harrier's trademark "bow" in our direction, which was very cool and no longer on the airshow scene as the RAF no longer provide a Harrier display, since they're all out east bombing people with teatowels for hats. Was pleased to see four more jets come in, all wearing long range fuel tanks and lazer targetting pods, with pilots from the navy all wearing sandy coloured flying suits. At the time we thought they'd been somewhere hot and dangerous, but it turns out they were in Cyprus for an exercise, which only counts as hot and a bit naughty.


Hmmm, at this point I see I'm missing a snappy ending for this piece. So....

"Salut"