Avro Vulcan Takes Final Flight

Pia Bergqvist

Tuesday, November 03, 2015 at 09:42 PM ET

Verified

Vulcan's final flight

Key Takeaways:

The iconic Avro Vulcan XH558, also known as "The Spirit of Great Britain," has completed its final flight on October 28, permanently ceasing its active flying displays.
Its retirement, after eight years of public flights since 2007, was due to the increasing difficulty of maintenance for the aging aircraft and a dwindling number of expert technicians.
While XH558 will no longer fly, it will be preserved at the Robin Hood Doncaster Sheffield Airport as part of a display and educational center, with plans for occasional engine starts and runway runs.

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The Avro Vulcan XH558, a British bomber with a beautiful delta profile and an unmistakable howling sound, has landed for the last time, concluding its “Farewell to Flight” season. The charitable organization Vulcan to the Sky Trust has operated the last of the breed, named The Spirit of Great Britain, for the past eight years, providing the public with many flight displays of the exciting airplane.

The Avro Vulcan was designed in the late 1940s and retired from the Royal Air Force in 1984. XH558 returned to the skies again in 2007 and flew 228 flights and 346 hours, much to the thrill of millions of airshow spectators.