The Vulcan bomber had a long operational life in the RAF, first as a nuclear attack weapon system and lastly a "conventional" bomber.
This one is kept at the Museum of Flight in Scotland which is located on the old RAF airfield of East Fortune and is one of only two Vulcans that used weapons in anger.
It is XM597, and it carried out two "Black Buck" attacks on the Falkland islands during the "Falklands conflict" in 1982. On both occasions it fired missiles against Argentinian radars on the islands.
The missile shown here harks back to the Vulcan's nuclear attack days. The Avro Blue Steel would have been fired from the Vulcan up to 575 miles from it's target and flown at Mach 3+ speeds. The warhead was a large 1.1 Megatons and thankfully was never used. The Vulcan was not able to fly supersonic, even in a dive.
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