One Saturday a couple of years ago, I was providing the wedding transport for a young couple who were getting hitched. Following a lovely church ceremony in the village of Ash in Kent, the young newly weds had asked the photographer to take some pictures of them together with the car in a nearby orchard with the church framed in the background.
So there we all were on this lovely sunny day with said vintage car positioned in orchard with church spire rising into blue sky behind it, as instructed. The photographer was busy taking endless snaps of the happy couple whilst I kicked my heals out of shot. After what seemed like an age I became aware of a large low flying aircraft rapidly approaching us directly over the aforementioned church spire. It was the Vulcan flying very low after just having just left the nearby Thanet Airshow.
I yelled at the photographer to get the Vulcan in shot as well. It would have made a unique photo for the couple. Them looking radiant in front of their vintage wedding car in a picturesque orchard setting with the church spire where they had just been married in rising skyward in the background and the sky above full of magnificent Vulcan underbelly. Priceless.
After some rapid fumbling he announced that he had run out of memory space!!!
On another occasion many many years before I had accompanied my father to an Airshow at West Malling in Kent. Whilst wandering along the line of, what we in our family refer to as, muck and tat stalls, which ran parallel to and facing the runway, I caught sight of a Vulcan quietly approaching. Its entrance was so gentle that many people either hadn't noticed it coming or had paid it no attention at all. It was flying with its undercarriage up and at what must have been no more than a hundred feet above the runway. As it drew level with me the pilot gave it the full tin of beans and this great lumbering giant stood on its tail and went up almost vertically like a cat with its tail on fire until levelling off several thousand feet above. The effect was electrifying. The ground literally shook like an earthquake, small children were instantly reduced to tears and it set off most of the car alarms in the vast public car parking area. The noise was epic.
I will never forget that experience. This huge bomber aircraft being flown like a jet fighter demonstrated what superb aircraft they were.
... (not really). Seriously, we saw your Cali from a distance as you were nearing the exit barrier. Who'd have thought that there would be only one exit and that the Vulcan would have been such a draw?
