Our Visit the Vulcan Day on 19 June 2011 (see separate News item) was the public's first chance to get a close-up view of the repainting work we began on Vulcan XL426 in April. Work on the port side of the aircraft's fin is now complete and areas on top of the fuselage and wings have been rubbed-down and prepared for painting.
We last painted XL426 over 10 years ago and her paintwork has been looking more than a little worn of late. More importantly, the poor state of the paint means it is no longer protecting the airframe from the elements. We always intended carrying out a full repaint of XL426 once our Return to Power restoration programme was complete; however the Vulcan's paint was deteriorating at such a rate that we could put the work off no longer.
XL426 is being repainted in her existing 'wrap around' green and grey camouflage scheme. This is the scheme which has been worn by XL426 since the early 1980s. We are repainting XL426 outside on her parking pan and so are not stripping down the airframe to bare metal. A core team from within our Engineering Team, led by Steve Barnes, has been given responsibility for the work and they intend completing repainting of XL426's upper surfaces by the end of the summer.
We have been careful to source paint as close to the correct shades of green and grey as is possible. The green paint used on our previous two repaints was not the correct shade (it was more like British Racing Green and would have looked more at home on an historic racing car) but we are determined to get things right this time! The paint has been supplied by Harry Adams and his team at Colour Dynamics on very generous terms - thanks Harry.
The rubbing down of the port side of the fin revealed some of XL426's history. Clearly visible (although partly obscured by the Union Flag) was the distinctive diamond fin flash worn by XL426 when she was with 617 'Dambusters' squadron. Also to be seen was the remnants of the pair of red greyhounds fin flash from XL426's days with 50 squadron. XL426 spent the majority of her RAF service with these two squadrons and we will be re-applying both flashes on either side of XL426's fin as the repaint work progresses.
We will keep you updated as work progresses. Photos by Steve Barnes.
