Museum Events

Vulcan Delivery Diary 06
Changed Views – 15 January 1983
By Howard Heeley

Nearly forty years ago on 7 February 1983, Vulcan XM594 landed at Winthorpe Airfield in eastern Nottinghamshire. When it safely touched down it became the only Vulcan to be flown into a non-licensed airfield in the UK. This is the third part of an abridged version of an article, which describes the acquisition process, that was originally published in an edition of Aviation News that year.

Things were getting done but problems still presented themselves ……

Saturday 15 January 1983 At 8am the sweeper started work on the western end of the runway. By midday it was obvious that only half of the runway would be cleared – the sweeper was only available for Saturday so more desperate measures had to be thought up. "How about asking for volunteers?"

The local radio stations were contacted again and asked to issue an appeal on our behalf. In addition, some frantic phone calls were made to try and locate another sweeper.

Eventually Newark based Hemelite, a block producing company offered us the free use of a towed road sweeper brush.

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