Moving the Vulcan

February 2008

Back to the Shed
Shed

Collecting It

Backing the empty trailer into position

Backing the empty trailer into position

A few days of unexpectedly beautiful weather for February, so I hired a trailer and we set off to retrieve it.

Usually when I've hired a car trailer I've been loading huge vehicles onto tiny trailers. Today was only a light load, so of course we'd been given the biggest trailer in the shop. Hydraulic tilt-bed, decent winch, flip-away rear lights all the bells and whistles.

radome, back in the flying position with the open side uppermost

Inverted, for a roof

This is approximately the position it would have been in flight. Last time it will be this way up!

Three of us managed to move it tolerably easily.

upright_side

Coneheads!

There had been some thought that "vertical" would be a good idea. More like ridiculously tall, with no useful space inside. I've have had to paint mushroom-spots on it if I'd done that.

Years ago, I failed to buy a Gloster Javelin radome because I couldn't think what to do with it. As it happened, I then spent the following weekend rebuilding a friend's decrepit allotment shed, a task that just needed a spare radome or two to have it done in no time. So remember, gather ye radomes while ye may!

radome, stood upright on its end

Rolled upright

We rolled it around, upside down and even up-ended it. Stuck to dragging it with brute force in the end. Stick with what you know best.

Onto the trailer

Onto the trailer

Finally we got it onto the trailer.

trailer rear

Loaded up and ready to move off

Unloading It

arch

arch

offloaded into the back garden

offloaded into the back garden

In the garden, looking more like a mollusc shell.

Now that's a garden snail problem!

garden_tfr

Mollusc

Tip of the radome

It's big, heavy, thick fibreglass and seems in reasonable condition. Next jobs are:

  • Humping it into place (past a few plants)
  • Laying a wall of a few hundred bricks to lift it up high enough to walk inside comfortably
  • Paving a few square yards of slabs
  • Making the ends doors and glazing the open end.

Inside

Looking out at the old wooden summerhouse, from inside the arch of the radome

Looking out at the old wooden summerhouse

Inside the radome

Inside the radome

Inside the dome, looking toward the nose.

Notch for the TFR

Notch for the TFR

Close up of the notch for the TFR thimble. This was another small "pimple" radome that projected through the main one.

ivy growing inside

Ivy

Genuine RAF-issue Ivy, aircraftmen for the use of.

I don't know what the (many) stencilled bullseyes are for? Patch repairs to the fibreglass?