vulcan short landing

[Dougs]

came across this on a forum very interesting would love to have seen a landing like this

As an aside he also said that on one flight they managed to land the Vulcan on the much shorter cross runway at Thurleigh, much to the consternation of the commercial pilot, who couldn't believe the large Vulcan could be squeezed into such a short runway. JF says they managed to do so by virtue of a lightly loaded aeroplane, a high angle of attack approach, and then popping open the bomb-bay on short finals, which effectively acted as an airbrake and helped dump speed, whilst also adding to the ground cushion effect underneath the delta wing, thus resulting in a far slower touch down speed than the commercial pilot believed possible for something as large as a Vulcan.

[Sooty655]

Interesting.

According to wiki, the "short" cross-runways at Thurleigh were both 4200ft.

The main runway at Wellesbourne is 917m ( = 3008ft). Perhaps Joe L'Estrange could be persuaded to join the KeyPubs forum.

If you want to see a Vulcan short landing, we will be happy to sell you a copy of our dvd.

[Dougs]

will hopefully be getting a copy very soon and watching said aircraft you guys are looking after

[Jogger321]

Obviously I know the history of why 655 ended up at Wellesbourne and the Roy Jacobson saga..but was it ever realistic that once she had landed the runway was long enough for her to take off safely from there if the CAA had granted her a licence?

[Sooty655]

Obviously I know the history of why 655 ended up at Wellesbourne and the Roy Jacobson saga..but was it ever realistic that once she had landed the runway was long enough for her to take off safely from there if the CAA had granted her a licence?

I guess the short answer is No!

I understand that Joe L'Estrange prepared a procedure to do it, which they hoped would be approved. Apparently it involved accelerating on the taxiway and swinging onto the runway at around 50 kts.

The basic problem is that no matter how much you improve (shorten) the take-off run, there simply isn't enough runway to reject the take-off immediately before lift-off.

I suppose it might have been possible to argue the case for a one-time approval to get her to somewhere more suitable, but continued operation from Wellesbourne was always going to be a non-starter.