#SP104A Vulcan B2
Purchased products will not feature the Squadron Prints watermark
Description
Squadron Prints Lithograph No. SP104A - Vulcan B2, XH558. Celebrating the times of the Avro Vulcan.
After WWII the Air Ministry had a requirement for a new heavy bomber and in 1947 six manufacturers were invited to tender for such an aircraft. The Type 698 was Avro‘s unique delta-wing design. Testing was carried out using small scale Type 707 examples before the full size prototype was rolled out in early August 1952 with the first flight taking place on the 30th of that month. It was in October 1952 that the aircraft received its official name of Vulcan as part of the RAF‘s ‘V‘ Bomber Force, the other two being the Handley Page Victor and the Vickers Valiant. The original delta wing was modified to have a cranked leading edge and the tail cone extended to house ECM equipment. Most of the original B1s were modified to B1A standard before the B2 version entered service. The first B1 aircraft went to No.230 OCU at RAF Waddington in July 1956 and No.83 Squadron at the same base formed in May 1957. Other squadrons to fly the B1/B1A were No.101 at Finningley from January 1958, 617 at Scampton from May 1958, 44 at Waddington from August 1960 and 50 from August 1961 at Waddington. All of these units later converted to the B2 version and were supplemented by Nos.9, 12, 27 and 35 Squadrons. 27 Squadron later flew the B2(MRR) version from November 1973 and 50 Squadron was the last to fly the type using the modified K2 tanker version until March 1984. Vulcan Bases in the UK were at Coningsby, Cottesmore, Finningley, Scampton and Waddington and in the NEAF at Akrotiri in Cyprus but the aircraft flew from many other locations both at home and abroad. It was also highly successful in many competitions staged by the USAF Strategic Air Command. Examples were also used for test purposes by Avro, Rolls-Royce, BCDU, A&AEE and RAE. The Vulcan flew in anger in its latter days when three Black Buck and two Shrike missions were flown in May 1982 in the Falklands Campaign. The B2 aircraft has a span of 111ft, a length of 99ft 11ins and is powered by four Rolls-Royce (Bristol Siddeley) Olympus 301 engines each rated at 20.000 lbs thrust. XH558 was the first Vulcan B2 to be delivered to the RAF when it joined No.230 OCU at Waddington in July 1960. It was converted to B2 MRR in August 1973 and to a K2 in June 1982 and served with 50 Squadron until March 1984. It became the last Vulcan to serve with the RAF being used by the Vulcan Display Flight as a B2 until withdrawn in March 1992.