Monday, April 14, 2008

So where have I been?

OK so it isn't her most flattering angle, but as you can see there aren't a lot of options. She is tucked right into a corner. For those of you not so crazy about aircraft, this is the Avro Vulcan at the RAF museum in Hendon. She is a huge bat of a plane, you find here in the museum by noticing how dark it has suddenly got, well she does rather blot out the lights when you get under her wings. Yet if you look for her from the wrong angle she is utterly invisible, being fairly short. I love going and sitting under her wings, she has the feeling of a mother bird protecting her young, and while you are there you can watch a video of four of them taking off.

For a while there has been a mission to put one of these birds back in the air. It's been hard and expensive work, but last October XH558 flew again. The Vulcan to the Sky Trust is now desperately trying to raise enough money to keep her in the air and make it through the airshow season this year. Once people are reminded what an amazing sight (and sound) she is they are pretty sure they will get the funding to keep going. If you would like to try and help keep this piece of our history flying please take a look at their web site. Now you may be wondering how this might be quilt related, well it is. Firstly I only found out she was having a funding crisis during my show. I am very pleased I did, I am so looking forward to seeing her fly this summer. I am also trying to design a quilt of her, so watch this space.

1 comment:

Kate North said...

Hey, I've been there - are you impressed? I went on a class trip with Olivia's class a month or two ago. We sat under her wings - she's a fairly cool plane, not that I really know anything about it...