(Image: Glenn Reay; old Finningley gate guard Vulcan XJ782)
Like XH563 at Scampton, the decommissioned Avro Vulcan B2 XJ782 spent several years as the gate guardian at RAF Finningley in South Yorkshire (now Robin Hood Airport) before being unceremoniously towed to the far side of the airfield and scrapped a few years later.
The mighty Vulcan wasn’t on display for long before being towed from pride of place near the main entrance and left to languish on the dump, not far from a Nimrod AEW aircraft which was a fixture at Finningley during the same period.
(Image: Glenn Reay; XJ782 preserved at RAF Finningley in 1983)
But despite its increasingly dishevelled condition throughout the 1980s, the RAF ironically continued to employ the services of XJ782 on the static line at Finningley’s annual airshow. Yet this Cold War icon of obvious public appeal wasn’t deemed important enough for more than a few years of preservation.
(Image: Glenn Reay)
The neglected hulk of Vulcan XJ782 was finally scrapped in 1988. Even today, 28 years later, the three heavy concrete bases that once supported the old Finningley gate guard’s wheels can still be seen (below), set into an equally-neglected patch of land by Hayfield Lane.
(Image: Bing Maps; neglected land where XJ782 once stood)
XJ782 was built in February 1961 and flew the last Vulcan sortie out of RAF Scampton on March 31, 1982. Earmarked for the Scampton dump, the bomber received an eleventh hour reprieve when she was posted to No. 101 Squadron before making her final flight to RAF Finningley for preservation on September 4, 1982.
(Image: Bing Maps; the abandoned gate guardian location by Hayfield Lane, Finningley)
Avro Vulcan XJ782 was broken up for scrap in 1988. One of her two main undercarriage doors, identified by the aircraft’s serial number, survived for some years at the South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum near Firbeck (now relocated to Doncaster). On a happier note Robin Hood Airport is now the permanent home of XH558, the world’s last airworthy Vulcan until its final flight in 2015.
Related – Dramatic Images of Vulcan XL319 in ‘Take-Off’ Pose at Sunderland
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