coastrider: Saturday Cycle...Farewell to the Vulcan...

Sunday, 11 October 2015

Saturday Cycle...Farewell to the Vulcan...

Pic by Craig...

Saturday i was up at 5am and into work early. Have to mow the greens in the dark with the lights on now, home and down to Gullane with the Surly Pugsley and riding at 10am with friends Craig and Stuart east along the coast. Jason joined us mid way along the coast to North Berwick and we rode south on trails via the John Muir Way (JMW) and cranked on hard on the road to East Fortune to not miss the scedualed last ever flyby by the last flying Avro Vulcan bomber. More trails and we stopped to watch some motorcycle racing at East Fortune, then more trails to Tyninghame cafe for tea and food before heading to the coast via the secret trail. Returning to North Berwick as the light went and it was on with the lights to cycle more of the JMW back to Gullane. Be 8.30pm by the time i got home and got the bike washed etc and sat down. a long day when up at 5am but worth it!...

Roll the pics....

picc by Craig...

As a teenager i was in awe at the Vulcan bombers that flew over East Lothian doing Cold War exercises.
Then when the Falklands War kicked off we watched on TV when the news reported that a group of Vulcan bombers had flew all the way to bomb the Port Stanley runway in a mission that at the time was more of a psychological blow to the invading Argentinians.
Operation `Black Buck` was an amazing Operation... how they got the old Vulcan's airborne, flew them there and back using 11 Victor Fuel tanker planes to re fuel one Vulcan on it`s 11`000 mile round trip was untried and so was an amazing feat to cover the Vulcan...finally fuelled and capable of having been able to have reached there and successfully bomb the airfield it was an amzing success.

Best bit is when they could not find a vital part and then found one being used as an ash tray in the Officers Mess! - typical British!...

Here is a YouTube film of that Operation...

Fast forward to today and time to say goodbye to the last ever flying Vulcan..