More Doncaster woes

Having literally overnight suffered the loss of Wizz Air, Doncaster Sheffield Airport (DSA) finds itself with another tenant departure, this one dating from 1957 when the airport was called RAF Finningley.

Avro Vulcan XH558 flew into the airport in March 2011 and, for a number of years, millions of supporters were able to see and hear her fly!  It was a homecoming for her, first arriving in 1960 as part of No 230 Operational Conversion Unit.

The Vulcan to the Sky Trust (VTST), the charity behind the restoration and return to flight of XH558, has been renting space on the airfield for the aircraft following an unsuccessful fundraising campaign to build a new permanent home for the Vulcan.  For technical support reasons the aircraft was finally grounded 28 October 2015.

John Sharman, Chair of Trustees, said: “We were extremely sad to hear the news regarding the strategic review of DSA and our thoughts are with the staff there who will no doubt be concerned about their futures.

“Our current agreement for parking our aircraft at DSA, together with access for our staff, volunteers, and visitors, runs until June 2023 and prior to the news about the future of DSA we had been told that the agreement would not be renewed and therefore would have to leave the site at that time.

“This is a blow to the Trust and will be very sad news for our supporters, but for some months we have been exploring options for XH558 to leave Doncaster”.

The VTST is currently exploring a number of options for a new home for Vulcan XH558 ranging from investigating the possibility of a short ferry flight to enable the aircraft to get to a new location intact or to dismantle and move and rebuild her in a dedicated permanent home.

See also 18 July issue of BTN and the possible closure of the airport with Peel Group, its owner, conducting a short review, criticized by many including Aviation Minister Robert Courts.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_Avro_Vulcans

www.vulcantothesky.org

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Chris Pocock, Uxbridge, UK

Doncaster deserves to close, if it treats such a worthy cause like this. Incidentally, Southend Airport also hosts a volunteer-supported Vulcan, and allows it to fire up and taxi down the runway from time to time. The next such occasion is next Saturday.