Live Long and Prosper

I was a normal little boy.

It was not that my Mother had me tested and I had a certificate to prove it.

I just behaved like any lad would in certain situations.

Take the distant rumble that indicated the approach of an aircraft.

Whatever I was doing would be abandoned in the frantic attempt to get to a vantage point to identify and appreciate a flypast. Our family house backed onto open fields over flown on a regular flight path by the RAF which in the 1970's meant a daily thrill of Lighting and Phantom fighter planes and my favourite the booming and lumbering delta winged Vulcan Bomber.

The smaller, nimbler front line attack aircraft gave little or no prior warning of their approach. I seemed to have developed a sixth sense about an imminent arrival in the airspace which sent a tingling down my spine and a feeling of anticipation a bit like the seconds before being sick.

I liked to think that but it may have been that I was just used to the passing of the scheduled flights.

The Vulcan was a different experience.

In the far distance there would be a rumbling very much like a summer storm front followed by a rising crescendo of powerful jet engines. Any loose putty bedded window panes emitted a faint rattling under the low frequency resonance.

The planes always flew very low as they began a technical descent to one of the Lincolnshire airfields which could have been Scampton, Waddington or Coningsby even though at some distance to the south and south west of the direction of flight.

The Vulcan was one of the most distinctive flying machines of the post war era in terms of sheer size and that almost UFO type profile when silhouetted against the sky.

In camouflage paint job they looked stunning emphasising the shape and muscle that was designed to carry a nuclear payload over huge distances. They were a response to the Cold War threat with Britain occupying the middle ground between the two dominant super powers of the USA and USSR.

Unfortunately a combination of governmental budgetary constraints, a scaling down of the frosty relations in world politics and further technological advances in military hardware sounded the death knell for the majestic Vulcan.

Up until this weekend one sole airworthy example had survived thanks to public support and the efforts of volunteers. It had been a long process to get the Vulcan to the skies and one fraught with problems and setbacks.

I saw the surviving Vulcan as many times grounded as in the air and although deprived on occasion of that earth shaking blast of engines on full throttle in a steep climb manouvre just seeing it being taxied across the runway apron was enthralling in the extreme.

Vulcan XH558 was on a farewell journey at the weekend covering the length and breadth of the country. The withdrawal of engineering support has ended the entrepid 50 year saga of that particular aircraft.

I did not get to see any of the final flypast but my childhood recollections of sprinting out into the garden, invariably with my trousers around my ankles from being in the loo, to catch sight of the iconic bomber will stay with me forever.