Raw Power

After the excitement of yesterday's sighting of a Peregrine and it's unopposed dominance of the skies, it is difficult to top it.
During our trip to Scotland, we drove past the RAF Leuchars air base near St. Andrews. The air base held it's annual air display on 12th September (we were back home by then, bother!) and the undoubted star of the show was the Raw Power of a much bigger lord of the sky, namely the Avro Vulcan Bomber.
There are some wonderful videos on YouTube of this awe-inspiring aircraft of yesteryear, some of them manage to capture the noise of the take-off as the four Bristol Olympus engines reach full power and emit the spine-tingling 'Vulcan Howl'.

Each of those engines packs a thrust of nearly 20,000lbs making a total thrust of nearly 36 tons. More than enough to power this giant nuclear bomber, fully laden and weighing nearly 85 tons into the air. The following video was taken at the RAF Leuchars show this year and shows the maneuverability of this monster.

A sobering thought that it was designed with one aim; to drop nuclear bombs on Russia. Thankfully it never came to that.....not yet anyway!