The publisher of the video Jonathan Winton was on September 5, 2015 in Prestwick to watch the Scottish Airshow 2015. He captioned “I wanted to see the Vulcan one last time before she’s retired in the next month or so.” Little did he know he would witness the Vulcan Bomber having problems with extending his nose wheel gear.
Winston added: “He called up Prestwick tower to do a flyover the airfield, then make a right hand turn to then land on runway 30. However after he made that turn things seemed to go wrong. Rather than report final he then did a second flyover, and started entering orbits to the north of the airfield.”
Then a Spitfire of the BBMF (Battle of Britain Memorial Flight) called in to help out the Cold War Vulcan Bomber and asked via the radio if there was anyway he could help by giving the Vulcan a closer look from underneath the aircraft. As the Vulcan bomber slowed down, the Spitfire formed up on its right wing and could confirm that the Vulcan’s nose wheel was not fully extended and that there was nothing blocking it from locking into place.
Following this the Vulcan entered into some very aggressive yawing, both left and right in an attempt to free whatever was holding the nose wheel back from extending and locking. After some attempts, the nose wheel finally extended and the bomber and initiated a landing.
Jonathan Winston said “We were all waiting with bated breath, not knowing whether or not it had indeed fully locked into place. Thankfully the landing went well, and as you can hear at the end of the video was great relief that everything had gone so well. Praise must also go to the Spitfire pilot for taking the initiative in helping the crew of the Vulcan resolve the issue.”
