XH558 is the only airworthy Vulcan in the world. Restored to flight after nearly 15 years at a cost of £7million. She now faces grounding forever, unless an additional £850,000 can be raised in February enabling funds for another full air show season. Last year she appeared in front of over 1.5 million people. 

She inspires immense pride in all who see her. A full education programme is built around her, not only telling the story of the cold war era, but the value of science and technology in inspiring future engineers. She was the “mother of concorde” – Can you help us save this ICONIC AIRCRAFT?

At the time of this press release, the ’09 Pledge Fund Scheme to raise £1million is coming to £330,000, which, in the harsh economic climate, is staggering in the 8 weeks it has been active.

Thankfully, due to the continued support of sponsors & supporters, it has been possible to extend the deadline of the Pledge scheme to the beginning of March in the hope a wide spread publicity campaign will save her.

It is continued promotion, not only to the Aviation community, but to the wider public beyond, that will be key to our success in reaching the £1million goal in such a short period of time.

In a recent interview Dr Pleming, the CEO of the VTST, spoke to UK Airshow Review and is quoted as saying:-

“We already have around £400,000 [corporate sponsorship] per year, getting on for around a quarter of what we need, but it’s nothing like the 80 or 90% that we assumed that we could get, which in a different climate, with a fair wind, given what we’ve been told by potential sponsors, would have been possible. There has been a learning curve, but I wouldn’t put that down to mistakes.  I know what we’ve done, I know the team, I know their strengths. We’ve achieved a unique success in flying the Vulcan. Nobody else worldwide has done this and it is truly a proud thing for me and the team.

“One of the things we have to work on is the business plan, because I desperately don’t want to be in the same position this time next year as we are now. I think we have to now recognise that the world is a different place from the one that we assumed we’d be in, so I think that we do need to significantly change our business assumptions.”

 

“Formally we run out of cash at the beginning of March. We have very low reserves. We have been working very hard since the beginning of December on a pledge campaign. We’ve actually gotten to 400-odd thousand, on top of that we can add some commitments that we’ve had from other sources, but we still have to feel confident we’re going to make the whole of the million pounds that we need.”

 

“Running this project is not like only having to fuel a car up when you drive it – there are tremendous ongoing costs every month. We have an engineering team we need to keep the aircraft airworthy and to fly her. Insurance costs upwards of nearly £20,000 a month. Hangarage again, is a significant cost. So the idea that we’ll fly the aircraft and pay off everything at the end of the year doesn’t work. And as a charity, we’re not allowed to borrow, and we’re not allowed to have an overdraft.”

 

“Next season’s shows are already identified, and a provisional programme is already on the website – around 24 or so displays that we would like to get to. One of the big ones we would really like to achieve is going to Paris for the Le Bourget air show.”

 

See full article here.

 

 http://www.airshows.co.uk/feature-reports/2009/vulcan-xh558-turn-and-burn-event.html

 

Please help us to fulfill the dream of a Vulcan flying at the Paris Air Show 2009.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq8N0b53Fok

 

http://www.vulcantothesky.org