Although the rumors circulating about her being on the scrappers list a year ago are untrue, she is probably the most endangered Vulcan in North America. The 8th Air Force Museum is underfunded and its entire aircraft collection is displayed outside. The museum curator has been trying for years to raise the money to build a hangar to put the museum's collection in, but has recieved little support from the City of Bossier. Unfortunately it looks as though XM606's future is bleak at best, she will more then likely continue to deteriorate in the harsh Louisana enivornment until she one day meets her demise at the scrapper's hand.
Fittingly XM606 sits next to two of her American counterparts, a B-52D and a B-52G, and is situated about 200 yards from the old SAC Alert Facility on Barksdale AFB. The Alert Facility is much like the RAF's ORP. I have many memories from when I was younger, visiting my father at the Alert Facility at Barksdale, Dyess, and Grand Forks. It saddens me to see strategic bombers like the Vulcan and B-52 not being preserved as they should, they are memorials to the Cold War Warriors like my father and should be preserved as such.
I remember first seeing the Vulcan in the Bond movie Thunderball, and I first saw a Vulcan in person at the Duxford Museum. At the time my father made a few jokes about the rear crew not having ejection seats, which being a back seater himself in B-52s and B-1Bs, did not sit well with him.






