Thunder & Lightnings

Avro Vulcan - Survivor XL360

B.2A XL360 - Midland Air Museum, Coventry Airport, Warwickshire

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Vulcan B.2A XL360 at Midland Air Museum, 14th May 2022; Jake Wallace

The Midland Air Museum's XL360 is the only preserved Vulcan with a name - City of Coventry. Even so, it was only given the name after it had left RAF service! Even when in service very few Vulcans were ever given names. She entered service with 617 squadron on the 1st of March 1962, then served with 35 squadron, 230 OCU and 44 squadron before being flown into retirement at Coventry airport on the 26th of January 1982.

The museum is one of the few to regularly open up their Vulcan to visitors; basically, almost every day, depending on staff availability. This means that the cockpit is well aired, as moisture can be a problem with many static Vulcans. In late 2000 and early 2001 XL360 has undergone a good cleaning and was partially repainted during 2003/2004. Since then, she has been repainted several times and is now quite a few shades of greens and greys. The upper fuselage seems to have been painted a while back as it is fading, with the nose and airbrakes looking much more recent as it is rather shiny. But the wings and intakes have faded to a brown colour.

Overall, XL360 is not too bad, apart from the odd bit of corrosion, which can be mainly found along the underside of the ailerons.

Information on this page current as of 16/05/2022, last updated by Jake

Find other photos of XL360 on the following sites:

Air-Britain - Airliners.net - Airplane-Pictures.net - flickr.com - WorldAirPics.com - JetPhotos.net - PlanePictures.net